PRESENTED  TO  THE 


Long  Island  Historical  Society 


BY 


JAMES  M.  ADAMS. 


K 

PIONEERING  IN  CUBA 

A  NARRATIVE  OF  THE  SETTLEMENT  OF 
LA  GLORIA,  THE  FIRST  AMERICAN 
COLONY  IN  CUBA,  AND  THE  EARLY 
EXPERIENCES  OF  THE  PIONEERS 


BY 

JAMES  M.   ADAMS 

ONE  OF  THE  ORIGINAL  COLONISTS 


Illustrated 


CONCORD,  N.  H.: 

ttbe  IRumforfc  press 
1901 


Copyright,  1901,  by 
JAMES    M.   ADAMS 


WHOSE  COURAGE,  CHEERFULNESS,   AND  KINDLY  SPIRIT  WON   MY 
ADMIRATION  AND  AFFECTION 

THIS  BOOK  IS 
RESPECTFULLY  DEDICATED 


PREFACE. 


My  excuse  for  writing  and  publishing  this  book 
is  a  threefold  one.  For  some  time  I  have  strongly 
felt  that  the  true  story  of  the  La  Gloria  colony 
should  be  told,  without  bias  and  with  an  accurate, 
first-hand  knowledge  of  all  the  facts.  My  close 
relations  with  the  colony  and  the  colonists,  and  an 
actual  personal  residence  in  La  Gloria  for  nearly 
half  a  year,  have  made  me  entirely  familiar  with 
the  conditions  there,  and  I  have  endeavored  to  pre- 
sent them  to  the  reader  clearly,  correctly,  and  hon- 
estly. Secondly,  I  have  been  imbued  with  the  be- 
lief that  many  of  the  daily  happenings  in  the  colony, 
particularly  those  of  the  earlier  months,  are  of  suffi- 
cient general  interest  to  justify  their  narration  ;  and 
if  I  am  wrong  in  this,  I  am  quite  sure  that  these 
incidents,  anecdotes,  and  recollections  will  find  an 
attentive  audience  among  the  colonists  and  their 
friends.  It  is  one  of  the  author's  chief  regrets  that 
the  size  and  scope  of  this  book  does  not  admit  of 
the  mention  by  name  of  all  of  the  colonists  who  were 
prominent  and  active  in  the  life  of  the  colony. 
Thirdly,  while  in  La  Gloria,  in  his  capacity  as  a 
member  of  the  Pioneer  Association,  the  author  had 


6  Preface. 

the  honor  to  be  the  chairman  of  the  committee  on 
History  of  the  Colony.  This  committee  was  not 
officially  or  outwardly  active,  but  in  a  quiet  way  its 
members  stored  up  history  as  fast  as  it  was  made. 
The  author  does  not  dignify  the  present  work  by 
the  name  of  history,  but  prefers  to  call  it  a  narra- 
tive of  the  first  year  of  the  colony.  He  believes, 
however,  that  it  contains  many  facts  and  incidents 
which  will  be  found  useful  material  to  draw  upon 
when  in  later  years  a  complete  history  of  the  first 
American  colony  in  Cuba  may  be  written. 

I  wish  to  acknowledge  my  indebtedness  to  Mr. 
V.  K.  Van  De  Venter,  a  professional  photographer 
of  Dundee,  Michigan,  for  some  of  the  best  pictures 
in  the  book.  The  other  photographs  were  taken, 
and  in  several  cases  kindly  furnished  gratuitously, 
by  Robin  H.  Ford,  John  H.  Rising,  L.  E.  Mayo, 
and  W.  G.  Spiker.  I  am  also  under  obligation  to 
Mr.  Spiker  for  the  loan  of  the  cut  of  the  lake  on 
the  Laguna  Grande  tract,  and  to  Dr.  W.  P.  Peirce 
for  the  use  of  the  cut  of  his  pineapple  garden  in  La 
Gloria.  All  of  the  pictures  in  the  book  are  scenes 
in  the  province  of  Puerto  Principe,  and  with  two  or 
three  exceptions,  in  or  around  La  Gloria. 

j.  M.  A. 
.     North  Weare,  N.  H.,  December,  1900. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER   I. 
THE  ARRIVAL  OF  THE  COLONISTS  IN  NUEVITAS  HARBOR. 

PAGE. 

A  New  Sight  for  Old  Nuevitas — The  Yarmouth  drops 
•  Anchor  in  the  Harbor — The  Vanguard  of  the 
First  American  Colony  Planted  in  Cuba — The 
Beautiful  Cuban  Coast — Picturesque  Appearance 
of  Nuevitas — "  Distance  Lends  Enchantment  to 
the  View11 — Character  of  the  Colonists — Gen. 
Paul  Van  der  Voort — Nearly  all  the  States  Rep- 
resented—  "  The  Only  Canuck  on  Board" — The 
Voyage  from  New  York 17 

CHAPTER  II. 
THE  JOURNEY  TO  PORT  LA  GLORIA. 

An  Irritating  Delay — Ashore  at  Nuevitas — Midnight 
Row  at  the  Pier — Convivial  Colonists  Clash 
With  Cubans — Ex-Soldier  Takes  an  Involuntary 
Bath—The  Cuban  Police— Hon.  Peter  E.  Park 
— The  Start  for  La  Gloria — Some  Intending 
Colonists  Back  Out — The  Man  With  the  Long, 
Red  Face— The  Only  Woman— The  Fleet  An- 
chors—  "  Tomorrow,  Four  O'clock,  Wind  Right, 
Go!" — An  Uncomfortable  Night — Cuban  Cap- 
tain Falls  Overboard — Port  La  Gloria  Sighted  32 


8  Contents. 

CHAPTER  III. 
A  TOUGH  TRAMP^TO  LA  GLORIA  CITY. 

Arrival  at  the  Port — A  Discouraging  Scene — Mud, 
Water,  and  Sand  Flies — The  Memorable  Walk 
to  La  Gloria  ••  City" — An  Awful  Road— Battle 
With  Water,  Mud,  Stumps,  Roots,  Logs,  Briers 
and  Branches — Lawyer  Park  Leads  the  Strange 
Procession — La  Gloria  at  Last — The  Royal 
Palm — Women  in  Masculine  Garb — Col.  Thos. 
H.  Maginniss — First  Night  in  La  Gloria — The 
Survey  Corps — Chief  Engineer  Kelly — Experi- 
ences of  the  Lowells  and  Spikers  ....  44 

CHAPTER  IV. 
FIRST  DAYS  IN  THE  NEW  COLONY. 

Isolation  of  La  Gloria — The  Camp  at  Night — Strange 
Sounds  in  the  Forest — The  Colonists  Happy — 
Their  Excellent  Health — Remarkable  Cures  Ef- 
fected by  the  Climate — The  Agreeable  Temper- 
ature— Prolonged  Rainy  Season — The  "  Hotel" 
— The  Log  Foundation — A  Favorite  Joke — The 
Company's  Spring — Small  Variety  of  Food — 
My  First  Supper  in  La  Gloria — Eating  Flamin- 
go and  Aged  Goat — A  Commissary  With  Noth- 
ing to  Sell — A  Fluctuating  Population  ...  59 

CHAPTER  V. 
THE  ALLOTMENT  OF  THE  LAND. 

The  Character  of  the  Contracts — The  Question  of 
Subdivision — Some  of  the  Difficulties — Matter 
Placed  in  the  Hands  of  a  Committee  of  the  Col- 


Contents.  9 

onists — Fair  and  Feasible  Plan  Adopted — Gen. 
Van  der  Voort's  Arrival  in  La  Gloria — His  Boat 
Nearly  Wrecked — Delay  in  Getting  Baggage — 
Colonists  Get  Their  Land  Promptly — The 
Town  as  Laid  Out — Site  Well  Chosen — Woods 
Full  of  Colonists  Hunting  for  Their  Plantations 
— Different  Kinds  of  Soil 73 

CHAPTER  VI. 
THE  SUGAR  RIOT. 

Population  of  Colony  Slowly  Increases — Arrival  of 
Second  Yarmouth — Sensational  and  Ridiculous 
Reports — Consternation  in  Asbury  Park — 
Laughing  Over  Newspaper  Stories — Excitement 
Over  Sugar — Mass  Meeting  to  Air  the  Griev- 
ance— An  Unexpected  Turn  of  Affairs — Cable 
From  New  York  Brings  Good  News — Van  der 
Voort  Elected  President  of  the  Company — Sugar 
Orators  Remain  Silent — A  Noisy  Celebration  86 

CHAPTER  VII. 
ADVENTURES  AND  MISADVENTURES. 

The  Women  in  the  Camp — Mrs.  Moller — Her  Cos- 
tume and  Extraordinary  Adventures — How  She 
Entered  La  Gloria — Roosts  in  a  Tree  all  Night 
— Builds  the  First  House  in  La  Gloria — Her 
Famous  Cow  and  Calf — Wonderful  Bloomers — 
Ubiquitous  Mrs.  Horn — Weighed  250,  but 
Waded  Into  La  Gloria — Not  "Rattled"  by  a 
Brook  Running  Through  Her  Tent — A  Pig 
Hunt  and  Its  Results — Surveyors  Lost  in  the 
Woods 94 


io  Contents. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
THE  CUBANS. 

Good  People  to  "Get  Along  With" — Their  Kind- 
ness and  Courtesy — Harmony  and  Good  Feel- 
ing Between  the  Colonists  and  Cubans — Their 
Primitive  Style  of  Living — The  Red  Soil  and  Its 
Stains — Rural  Homes — Prevalence  of  Children, 
Chickens,  and  Dogs — Little  Girl  Dresses  for 
Company  With  Only  a  Slipper — Food  and  Drink 
of  the  Cubans — Few  Amusements — An  Indiffer- 
ent People — The  Country  Districts  of  the  Prov- 
ince of  Puerto  Principe  104 

CHAPTER  IX. 
STEPS  OF  PROGRESS. 

Clearing  and  Planting — The  Post-office — Col.  John 
F.  Early— The  "Old  Senor"—  La  Gloria  Police 
Force — Chief  Matthews'  Nightly  Trip  "  Down 
the  Line" — No  Liquor  Sold,  and  Practically  no 
Crime  Committed — Watchman  Eugene  Kezar — 
Religious  Services  and  Ministers — La  Gloria 
Pioneer  Association — Dr.  W.  P.  Peirce — Mr. 
D.  E.  Lowell — Mr.  R.  G.  Earner — Important 
Work  of  the  Association 118 

CHAPTER  X. 
EVENTS  IMPORTANT  AND  OTHERWISE. 

Worth  of  the  Colonists — Gen.  Van  der  Voort's  New 
Cuban  House — The  "  Lookout  Tree" — Its  Part 
in  the  Cuban  Wars — The  General's  Garden — 
Marvelously  Rapid  Growth  of  Plants — First 


Contents.  1 1 

Birth  in  La  Gloria — Olaf  El  Gloria  Olson — Given 
a  Town  Lot —  Temperature  Figures — Perfection 
of  Climate — The  Maginniss  Corduroy  Road — 
First  Well  Dug—  Architect  M.  A.  C.  Neff  .  .133 

CHAPTER  XI. 
SELF-RELIANCE  OF  THE  COLONISTS. 

The  Man  With  the  Hoe — "  Grandpa"  Withee  Able 
to  Take  Care  of  Himself— Not  Dead,  but  Very 
Much  Alive — A  Pugnacious  Old  Man — Mr. 
Withee  Shoots  Chickens  and  Defies  the  Authori- 
ties— Big  Jack  McCauley  and  His  "  Influence  "- 
"Albany"  and  the  Mosquitoes — Arrival  of 
Third  Yarmouth — Arnold  Mollenhauer — John 
A.  Connell— S.  W.  Storm— The  First  School 
and  Its  Teacher 143 

CHAPTER  XII. 
THE  FIRST  HOLIDAY  IN  LA  GLORIA. 

Craving  for  Athletic  Sports — Half  Holiday  Formally 
Proclaimed — A  Beautiful  Day — The  Colonists 
Photographed — Lieut.  Evans  and  His  Soldiers 
of  the  P^ighth  U.  S.  Cavalry — Successful  Sports 
— Baseball  Game — An  Event  not  Down  on  the 
Program — Excited  Colonists — Lawyer  C.  Hugo 
Drake  of  Puerto  Principe — His  Scheme — Or- 
dered Out  of  Camp — A  Night  in  the  Woods — 
Lieutenant  Cienfuente 155 

CHAPTER    XIII. 
INDUSTRY  OF  THE  COLONISTS. 

Pink  Orchids  on  the  Trees — Vegetables  Raised  and 
Fruit  Trees  Set  Out — The  Various  Employ- 


12  Contents. 

ments — Working  on  the  Survey  Corps — Chief 
Kelly's  Facetious  Formula — An  Official  Kicker 
— B.  F.  Seibert — Improvements  at  the  Port — 
Fish,  Alligators,  and  Flamingo — J.  L.  Ratekin 
— First  Banquet  in  La  Gloria — Departure  of 
Maginniss  Party — First  Death  in  the  Colony — 
Only  One  Death  in  Six  Months — Lowell's  Cor- 
duroy Road  and  Kelly's  Permanent  Highway  .  166 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
THE  FIRST  BALL  IN  LA  GLORIA. 

A  Semi-Anniversary — Town  Lots  and  Plantations 
Allotted  in  First  Six  Months — A  Grand  Ball — 
French  Dancing  Master  in  Charge — Dan  Good- 
man's Pennsylvania  Modesty — Organizing  an 
Orchestra  at  Short  Notice — The  Ballroom — 
Rev.  Dr.  Gill  Lends  His  Tent  Floor — Elaborate 
Decorations — A  Transformation  Scene — Some 
Taking  Specialties — A  Fine  Supper — Music  in 
Camp — An  Aggravating  Cornet  Player — Singers 
in  the  Colony 177 

CHAPTER  XV. 
A  WALKING  TRIP  TO  PUERTO  PRINCIPE. 

Five  Good  Walkers — A  Halt  at  Mercedes — Sparsely 
Settled  Country — Cuban  Trails — A  Night  in 
the  Woods — A  Cripple  From  Sore  Feet — A 
Pretty  Country  Place — The  Cubitas  Mountains 
— Hunting  for  the  Late  Cuban  Capital — A 
Broad  and  Beautiful  View — Seventeen  Miles 
Without  a  House — Night  on  the  Plain — The 
City  of  Puerto  Principe — Politeness  of  Its  Peo- 


Contents.  13. 

pie — The  Journey  Home — Sanchez1  Sugar  Plan- 
tation— Lost  in  the  Forest — La  Gloria  Once 
More 186 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
IN  AND  AROUND  LA  GLORIA. 

Horses  That  May  Have  Committed  Suicide — Colonel 
Maginniss  "A  Master  Hand  in  Sickness" — Sud- 
den and  Surprising  Rise  of  Water — A  Deluge 
of  Frogs — A  Greedy  Snake — Catching  Fish  in 
Central  Avenue — D.  Siefert's  Industry — Max 
Neuber — Mountain  View — A  Facetious  Sign- 
board— The  Sangjai — An  Aggravating  and 
Uncertain  Channel 203. 

CHAPTER   XVII. 
THE    COLONY  AT  THE  END  OF  THE  FIRST  YEAR. 

The  Saw  Mill— The  Pole  Tramway  to  the  Bay— A 
Tragedy  in  the  Colony — Death  of  Mr.  Bosworth 
— The  Summer  Season — The  Country  Around 
La  Gloria— The  Cuban  Colonization  Company — 
Guanaja — The  Rural  Guard — Organizations  in 
La  Gloria — The  March  of  Improvements — 
Construction  of  Wooden  Buildings — Colonists 
Delighted  With  Their  New  Home  in  the  Tropics  212 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE. 

James  M.  Adams      ....    Frontispiece. 

Map  of  Cuba    .          .          .          .                   .          .  16 

City  of  Nuevitas,  Cuba      .          .          .          .          .  20 

Gen.  Paul  Van  der  Voort .          .          .          .          .  26 

An  Involuntary  Bath          .      ,  .          .          .          .  42 

Port  La  Gloria           .          .          .          .          .          .  46 

Author  on  Road  to  La  Gloria    ....  48 

Col.  Thomas  H.  Maginniss        .          .          .          .  52 

"The  Hotel"            ....                    .  64 

The  Spring       .......  68 

Robert  C.  Beausejour        .....  82 

La  Gloria,  Cuba,  Looking  North         ....  88 

First  House  in  La  Gloria  .....  97 

Frank  J.  O'Reilly      .          .          .          .          .          .  no 

First  Women  Colonists  of  La  Gloria  .          .          .  122 

Dr.  William  P.  Peirce 126 

Gen.  Van  der  Voort's  Cuban  House  .          .          .  134 

La  Gloria,  Cuba,  Looking  South         .          .          .  150 

Group  of  Colonists    .          .          .          .          .          .  158 

The  Survey  Corps     .          .          .          .          .          .  168 

Interior  Gen.  Van  der  Voort's  House          .          .  182 

Agramonte  Plaza,  Puerto  Principe,  Cuba    .          .  200 

Dr.  Peirce's  Pineapple  Patch      ....  208 

Scene  on  Laguna  Grande  .          .          .          .          .  214 


PIONEERING  IN  CUBA. 


CHAPTER  I. 

ARRIVAL  OF  THE   COLONISTS  IN  NUEVITAS 
HARBOR. 

JUST  after  noon  on  January  4,  1900,  the 
ancient  city  of  Nuevitas,  Cuba,  lazily  basking 
in  the  midday  sunshine,  witnessed  a  sight 
which  had  not  been  paralleled  in  the  four 
hundred  years  of  its  existence.  A  steamer 
was  dropping  anchor  in  the  placid  water  of 
the  harbor  a  mile  off  shore,  and  her  decks 
were  thronged  with  a  crowd  of  more  than  two 
hundred  eager  and  active  Americans.  They 
wore  no  uniforms,  nor  did  they  carry  either 
guns  or  swords  ;  and  yet  they  had  come  on 
an  errand  of  conquest.  They  had  fared  forth 
from  their  native  land  to  attack  the  formidable 
forests  and  to  subdue  the  untamed  soil  of  the 
province  of  Puerto  Principe — a  task  which 
required  scarcely  less  courage  and  resolution 
than  a  feat  of  arms  might  have  demanded  in 
that  locality  two  years  before.  Well  aware 


1 8  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

that  there  was  a  hard  fight  before  them,  they 
were  yet  sanguine  of  success  and  eager  to 
begin  active  operations.  It  was  the  vanguard 
of  the  first  American  colony  planted  in  Cuba. 
The  vessel  that  lay  at  anchor  in  the  beau- 
tiful land-locked  harbor  of  Nuevitas  was  the 
screw  steamer  Yarmouth^  a  steel  ship  which, 
if  not  as  fast  and  elegant  as  the  ocean  grey- 
hounds that  cross  the  Atlantic,  was  large  and 
fine  enough  to  have  easily  commanded  the 
unbounded  admiration  and  amazement  of 
Christopher  Columbus  had  he  beheld  her 
when  he  landed  from  the  Santa  Maria  on  the 
coast  of  Cuba  near  this  point  more  than  four 
centuries  ago.  Great  changes  have  been 
wrought  since  the  days  of  Columbus  in  the 
manner  of  craft  that  sail  the  seas,  but  less 
progress  has  been  made  by  the  city  of  Nue- 
vitas in  those  four  hundred  long  years.  The 
Yarmouth,  substantial  if  not  handsome,  and 
safe  if  not  swift,  had  brought  the  colonists  to 
this  port  without  mishap,  thus  redeeming  one 
of  the  many  promises  of  the  Cuban  Land  and 
Steamship  Company.  Since  early  morning 
the  vessel  had  been  slowly  steaming  along 
the  palm-fringed  coast  of  the  "  Pearl  of  the 
Antilles,"  daybreak  having  revealed  the  fact 
that  the  boat  was  too  far  to  the  eastward,  and 


The  Arrival  at  Nuevitas.  19 

late  in  the  forenoon  we  entered  the*  picturesque 
bay  of  Nuevitas,  took  on  a  swarthy  Cuban 
pilot,  and,  gliding  quietly  past  straggling 
palm-thatched  native  shacks  and  tiny  green- 
clad  isles,  came  to  anchor  in  plain  view  of 
the  city  that  Velasquez  founded  in  1514.  We 
had  passed  two  or  three  small  circular  forts, 
any  one  of  which  would  have  been  demol- 
ished by  a  single  well-directed  shot  from  a 
thirteen-inch  gun.  These  defenses  were 
unoccupied,  and  there  was  naught  else  to 
threaten  the  established  peace. 

The  day  was  beautiful,  freshened  by  a  soft 
and  balmy  breeze,  with  the  delightful  temper- 
ature of  75  degrees.  Far  back  in  the  interior, 
through  the  wonderfully  transparent  Cuban 
atmosphere,  one  could  see  the  light  blue  peaks 
of  lofty  mountains,  standing  singly  instead  of 
in  groups,  as  if  each  were  the  monarch  of  a 
small  principality.  Their  outlines,  as  seen  at 
this  distance,  were  graceful  and  symmetrical, 
rather  than  rugged  and  overpowering  like 
some  of  their  brother  chieftains  of  the  North. 
Near  at  hand  the  listless  city  of  Nuevitas 
extended  from  the  water's  edge  backward  up 
the  hillside  of  a  long,  green  ridge,  the  low, 
red-tiled  houses  clinging  to  what  seemed 
precarious  positions  along  the  rough,  water- 


H 

S    d 
^    S. 


The  Arrival  at  Nuevitas.  21 


worn  streets  that  gashed  the  side  of  the 
hill.  To  the  right  a  green-covered  promon- 
tory projected  far  into  the  bay,  dotted  with 
occasional  native  shacks  and  planted  in  part 
with  sisal  hemp.  The  colonists  on  shipboard, 
ignorant  of  the  appearance  of  this  tropical 
product,  at  first  took  the  hemp  for  pineapple 
plants,  but  soon  learned  their  mistake  from 
one  who  had  been  in  the  tropics  before. 
Viewed  from  the  harbor,  Nuevitas  looks 
pretty  and  picturesque,  but  once  on  shore  the 
illusion  vanishes.  Mud  meets  you  at  the 
threshold  and  sticks  to  you  like  a  brother. 
The  streets,  for  the  most  part,  are  nothing 
more  than  rain-furrowed  lanes,  filled  with 
large,  projecting  stones  and  gullies  of  no  little 
depth.  Sticky,  yellow  mud  is  everywhere, 
and  once  acquired  is  as  hard  to  get  rid  of  as 
the  rheumatism.  The  houses,  in  general,  are 
little  better  than  hovels,  and  the  gardens 
around  them  are  neglected  and  forlorn. 
When  a  spot  more  attractive  than  the  others 
is  found,  Nature  is  entitled  to  all  the  credit. 
The  shops  are  poor  and  mean,  and  not  over 
well  supplied  with  merchandise.  The  natives, 
while  kindly  disposed  toward  the  "America- 
nos," are,  for  the  most  part,  unattractive  in 
dress  and  person.  The  few  public  buildings 


22  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

are  ugly  and  there  is  not  a  pleasant  street  in 
the  town.  And  yet  when  seen  from  the  har- 
bor the  city  looks  pretty,  mainly  on  account 
of  its  red-tiled  houses,  grassy  hillside  slopes, 
and  waving  cocoanut  palms.  The  author  of 
the  ancient  saying  that  "  distance  lends  en- 
chantment to  the  view,"  might  well  have 
gathered  his  inspiration  at  Nuevitas. 

If  the  inhabitants  of  Nuevitas  have  the 
quality  of  curiosity,  they  clearly  did  not  have 
it  with  them  at  the  time  of  our  arrival.  Al- 
though it  is  said  on  good  authority,  that  the 
city  had  never  before  had  more  than  twelve 
or  fifteen  visitors  at  one  time,  save  soldiers  or 
sailors,  the  natives  betrayed  no  excitement 
and  little  interest  in  the  advent  of  two  hun- 
dred American  civilians.  With  the  exception 
of  a  handful  of  boatmen  and  a  few  fruit  ven- 
ders, not  a  person  came  to  the  piers  to  gaze 
at  the  new  arrivals,  and  in  the  town  the  peo- 
ple scarcely  gave  themselves  the  trouble  to 
look  out  of  their  open  dwellings  and  shops  at 
the  colonists.  This  may  have  been  inherent 
courtesy — for  the  Cuban  is  nothing  if  not 
courteous — but  to  us  it  seemed  more  like 
indifference.  The  Cubans  are  certainly  an 
indifferent  people,  and  at  this  port  they  ap- 
peared to  have  no  object  or  interest  in  life. 


The  Arrival  at  Nuevitas.  23 

They  dwelt  in  drowsy  content,  smoking  their 
cigarettes,  and  doing  their  little  buying  and 
selling  in  a  leisurely  and  heedless  manner. 
The  most  of  them  pick  up  a  precarious  living 
with  but  little  labor.  These  easy-going  habits 
impress  the  close  observer  as  being  more  the 
result  of  indifference  than  downright  indo- 
lence, for  when  the  occasion  demands  it  the 
Cuban  often  exhibits  surprising  activity  and 
industry.  He  does  not,  however,  work  for 
the  fun  of  it,  and  it  never  occurs  to  him  that  it 
is  necessary  to  lay  up  anything  for  the  pro- 
verbial "rainy  day."  Accustomed  to  the 
fairest  skies  in  the  world,  he  never  anticipates 
cloudy  weather. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  if  we  had  been 
arrayed  in  brilliant  uniforms,  resplendent  of 
gold  lace,  brass  buttons,  and  all  the  accom- 
panying trappings,  we  should  have  aroused 
more  interest,  for  the  Cuban  loves  color, 
pageant,  and  martial  show,  but  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  nothing  could  have  been  plainer  and 
uglier  than  the  dress  of  most  of  the  colonists. 
To  the  superficial  observer,  there  was  noth- 
ing about  the  invaders  to  hold  attention,  but 
to  me,  who  had  closely  studied  my  compan- 
ions and  fellow-colonists  for  nearly  a  week, 
they  were  full  of  interest  and  inspiration. 


24  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

They  were,  to  be  sure,  a  motley  crowd,  rep- 
resenting many  states  and  territories,  and 
several  grades  of  social  standing,  but  they 
were  obviously  courageous,  enterprising,  and 
of  good  character.  In  point  of  intelligence 
and  manifest  honesty  and  energy  they  aver- 
aged high — much  higher  than  one  would 
expect  of  the  pioneers  in  a  project  of  this  sort. 
They  were  not  reckless  and  unscrupulous 
adventurers,  nor  yet  rolling  stones  who 
sought  an  indolent  life  of  ease,  but  serious- 
minded  and  industrious  home-seekers.  They 
had  counted  the  cost,  and  resolved  to  go 
forward  and  achieve  success,  expecting 
obstacles,  but  not  anticipating  defeat.  A 
thoughtful  person  could  not  fail  to  be  im- 
pressed by  the  serious  and  resolute  manner 
in  which  these  voyagers  entered  upon  the 
work  of  establishing  a  new  home  for  them- 
selves in  a  tropical  country.  Since  the  days 
when  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  landed  upon  the 
bleak  shores  of  New  England,  I  doubt  if  a 
better  aggregation  of  men  had  entered  upon 
an  enterprise  of  this  character. 

The  colonists  sailed  from  New  York  on  the 
Yarmouth  on  Saturday,  December  30,  1899, 
a  stinging  cold  day.  It  was  the  first  excur- 
sion run  by  the  Cuban  Land  and  Steamship 


The  Arrival  at  Nuevitas.  25 

Company,  whose  offices  at  32  Broadway  had 
for  several  days  been  crowded  with  men  from 
all  parts  of  the  country  eager  to  form  a  part 
of  the  first  expedition  to  establish  an  Ameri- 
can colony  at  La  Gloria,  on  the  north  coast 
of  Cuba,  about  forty  miles  west  of  Nuevitas. 
Every  passenger  on  board  the  Yarmouth  was 
supposed  to  have  purchased  or  contracted  for 
land  at  La  Gloria,  and  practically  all  had 
done  so.  The  steamer  was  commanded  by 
Capt.  E.  O.  Smith,  a  popular  and  efficient 
officer,  and  carried  besides  her  complement 
of  crew  and  waiters,  two  hundred  and  eleven 
passengers,  all  men  with  one  exception,  Mrs. 
Crandall,  the  wife  of  an  employe  of  the  com- 
pany. The  colonists  represented  all  sections 
of  the  country,  from  Maine  to  California, 
from  Minnesota  to  Florida.  No  less  than 
thirty  states  sent  their  delegations,  two  terri- 
tories, Canada,  Prince  Edward's  Island,  and 
British  Columbia.  All  came  to  New  York 
to  make  up  this  memorable  excursion.  The 
genial  and  stalwart  Gen.  Paul  Van  der  Voort 
of  Nebraska,  who  was  commander- in-chief 
of  the  national  G.  A.  R.  in  i882-'83,  had 
led  on  a  party  of  over  twenty  from  the  West, 
several  of  them  his  own  neighbors  in  Omaha. 
The  others  were  from  different  parts  of 


GEN.  PAUL  VAN  DER  VOORT. 


The  Arrival  at  Nuevitas.  27 

Nebraska,  Kansas,  and  Iowa.  General  Van 
der  Voort  was  the  assistant  manager  of  the 
company,  and  a  little  later  became  its  presi- 
dent. He  went  to  Cuba  in  the  double  capac- 
ity of  an  officer  of  the  company,  to  take 
charge  of  its  business  there,  and  a  colonist 
to  make  La  Gloria  his  permanent  residence. 
Honest,  affable,  and  humorous,  a  magnetic 
and  convincing  speaker,  with  a  sunny  nature 
singularly  free  from  affectation  and  ardently 
loyal  to  his  friends,  General  Van  der  Voort 
was  a  natural  leader  of  men,  well  fitted  to 
head  a  colonizing  expedition.  One  of  his 
sons  had  been  in  La  Gloria  for  some  time 
working  as  a  surveyor  in  the  employ  of  the 
company. 

General  Van  der  Voort's  party,  however, 
formed  but  a  small  fraction  of  the  Western 
representation.  Twelve  men  came  from 
Illinois,  six  from  Michigan,  five  from  Minne- 
sota, four  from  Wisconsin,  four  from  Indi- 
ana, four  from  Oklahoma — men  who  were 
"  boomers  "  in  the  rush  for  land  in  that  terri- 
tory— two  from  Missouri,  two  from  Wash- 
ington state,  one  from  Wyoming,  one  from 
South  Dakota,  and  one  from  California. 
Ohio  men,  usually  so  much  in  evidence,  were 
hard  to  find,  only  one  man  on  board  ac- 


28  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

knowledging  that  he  hailed  from  that  state. 
The  South  was  not  so  largely  represented  as 
the  West,  but  there  were  two  men  from 
Maryland,  two  from  Virginia,  two  from 
Georgia,  one  from  Florida,  one  from  West 
Virginia,  and  one  from  Washington,  D.  C. 
New  York  state  led  the  entire  list  with  fifty- 
one.  Pennsylvania  and  Massachusetts  came 
next  with  twenty-one  each.  From  New 
Jersey  there  were  fifteen.  Among  the  New 
England  states,  New  Hampshire  and  Con- 
necticut followed  Massachusetts,  with  five 
each.  Rhode  Island  contributed  four,  Maine 
two,  and  Vermont  two.  Two  of  the  colonists 
hailed  from  British  Columbia,  one  from 
Prince  Edward's  Island,  and  one  from 
Toronto,  Canada.  The  latter,  a  tall,  good- 
looking  Englishman  by  the  name  of  Ruther- 
ford, cheerfully  announced  himself  as  "the 
only  Canuck  on  board."  Those  who  were 
fortunate  enough  to  become  intimately  ac- 
quainted with  this  clear-headed  and  whole- 
hearted gentleman  were  easily  convinced  that 
while  he  might  call  himself  a  "Canuck" 
and  become  a  Cuban  by  emigration,  he 
would  remain  to  the  end  of  his  days  an 
Englishman,  and  a  very  good  specimen  of 
his  race.  If  Rutherford  had  not  taken  part 


The  Arrival  at  Nuevitas.  29 

in   the    "sugar    riot" — but    that's    "another 
story." 

The  colonists  represented  even  more  occu- 
pations than  states.  There  were  four  physi- 
cians, one  clergyman,  one  lawyer,  one  editor, 
one  patent  office  employe,  small  merchants, 
clerks,  bookkeepers,  locomotive  engineers, 
carpenters,  and  other  skilled  mechanics, 
besides  many  farmers.  There  were  also  a 
number  of  specialists.  The  embryo  colony 
included  several  veterans  of  the  Spanish  war, 
some  of  whom  had  been  in  Cuba  before. 
G.  A.  R.  buttons  were  surprisingly  numer- 
ous. The  men,  generally  speaking,  ap- 
peared to  be  eminently  practical  and  thor- 
oughly wide  awake.  They  looked  able  to 
take  hold  of  a  business  enterprise  and  push 
it  through  to  success,  regardless  of  obstacles. 
Several  of  the  colonists  showed  their  thrift  by 
taking  poultry  with  them,  while  an  old  gen- 
tleman from  Minnesota  had  brought  along 
two  colonies  of  Italian  honey  bees.  Another 
old  man  explained  his  presence  by  jocularly 
declaring  that  he  was  going  down  to  Cuba  to 
search  for  the  footprints  of  Columbus.  Ac- 
cents representing  all  sections  of  the  country 
were  harmoniously  and  curiously  mingled, 
and  the  spirit  of  fraternity  was  marked.  The 


3O  Pioneering-  in  Cuba. 

one  colored  man  in  the  party,  an  intelligent 
representative  of  his  race,  had  as  good  stand- 
ing as  anybody. 

The  voyage  down  was  uneventful.  It 
occupied  four  days  and  a  half,  and  for  thirty- 
six  hours,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Cape  Hat- 
teras,  very  rough  water  was  encountered. 
But  few  on  board  had  ever  known  such  a  sea, 
and  sickness  was  universal.  The  discomfort 
was  great,  partly  owing  to  the  crowded  con- 
dition of  the  boat.  Many  a  hardy  colonist 
sighed  for  his  Western  ranch  or  his  comforta- 
ble house  in  the  East.  The  superior  attrac- 
tions of  Cuba  were  forgotten  for  the  moment, 
and  there  was  intense  longing  for  the  land 
that  had  been  left  behind.  It  is  a  fact  hard 
to  believe  that  several  on  board  had  never 
before  seen  the  ocean,  to  say  nothing  of  sail- 
ing upon  its  turbulent  bosom.  With  the 
return  of  a  smooth  sea  a  marvelous  change 
came  over  the  voyagers,  and  all  began  to 
look  eagerly  forward  to  a  sight  of  the  famed 
"Pearl  of  the  Antilles."  We  were  now  sail- 
ing a  calm  tropical  sea,  with  the  fairest  of 
skies  above  us  and  a  mild  and  genial  tem- 
perature that  was  a  great  delight  after  the 
severe  cold  of  the  Northern  winter.  The 
salubrious  weather  continued  through  the 


The  Arrival  at  Nuevitas. 


remaining  forty-eight  hours  of  the  voyage, 
and  the  colonists  resumed  their  interrupted 
intercourse,  having  but  a  single  subject  in 
their  eager  discussions — always  the  prospects 
of  the  colony  or  something  bearing  on  their 
pioneer  enterprise.  The  topic  was  far  from 
being  talked  out  when  we  glided  into  the 
tranquil  harbor  of  Nuevitas. 


CHAPTER  II. 
THE  JOURNEY  TO  PORT  LA  GLORIA. 

THE  newly  arrived  colonists  found  the 
Spanish  word  "manana"  still  in  high  favor 
at  Nuevitas,  though  it  was  difficult  to  fix  the 
responsibility  for  the  irritating  delays.  The 
Cubans  and  the  officers  of  the  company  alike 
came  in  for  a  good  deal  of  straight-from-the- 
shoulder  Yankee  criticism.  Some  of  this 
was  deserved,  but  not  all.  The  company's 
officers  had  been  handicapped  in  many  ways, 
and  for  this  and  perhaps  other  reasons,  had 
not  pushed  things  along  as  rapidly  and  suc- 
cessfully as  the  colonists  had  been  led  to 
expect.  It  was  learned  that  the  town  of  La 
Gloria  was  as  yet  only  a  town  in  name,  the 
foundation  of  its  first  building,  the  hotel,  hav- 
ing just  been  laid.  The  lumber  for  the  struc- 
ture lay  on  the  docks  at  Nuevitas.  The  com- 
pany's portable  sawmill  machinery  w&s  rust- 
ing in  the  Open  air  at  the  same  place.  If  the 
colonists  marveled  at  this,  their  wonder  dis- 
appeared when,  a  little  later,  they  tramped 
and  waded  the  four  miles  of  so-called  "  road" 


The  Journey  to  Port  La  Gloria.     33 

that  lay  between  Port  La  Gloria  and  La 
Gloria  "  city."  Nothing  daunted  by  these 
discouraging  signs  and  the  many  unfavorable 
reports,  the  most  of  the  colonists  determined 
to  push  ahead. 

Arriving  at  Nuevitas  Thursday  noon,  Jan- 
uary 4,  the  passengers  of  the  Yarmouth  were 
not  allowed  to  leave  the  vessel  that  day  or 
evening.  Many  were  desirous  of  exploring 
the  ancient  city  of  Nuevitas,  but  the  most  fre- 
quent and  anxious  inquiry  was,  "  When  shall 
we  be  taken  to  La  Gloria?"  It  was  a  hard 
question  to  answer,  and  no  one  in  authority 
attempted  to  do  so.  There  were  several 
causes  contributing  to  the  delay,  one  of  which 
was  the  customs  inspection  and  another  the 
question  of  transportation.  Communication 
between  Nuevitas  and  La  Gloria  was  neither 
easy  nor  regular.  The  overland  route  was 
the  nearest,  about  forty  miles,  but  could  only 
be  utilized  by  a  person  on  foot  or  horseback. 
At  the  time  of  our  arrival  this  way  was 
entirely  impracticable  by  any  mode  of  travel. 
The  inside  or  shallow  water  route  was  about 
forty-eight  miles  long,  and  the  outside  or 
deep  water  course,  sixty  miles.  The  officers 
of  the  company  decided  upon  the  latter  as  the 
most  feasible,  and  set  out  to  procure  lighters 
3 


34  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

to  convey  the  colonists  and  their  baggage. 
This  was  no  easy  matter,  as  the  business  had 
to  be  done  with  Cubans,  and  Cubans  are 
never  in  any  hurry  about  coming  to  terms. 

Friday  morning  the  passengers  of  the  Yar- 
mouth were  permitted  to  go  ashore  and  wake 
up  the  inhabitants  of  the  sleepy  city,  each 
person  paying  some  thrifty  Cuban  twenty-five 
cents  for  transportation  thither  in  a  sailboat. 
The  Cuban  boatmen  coined  money  during 
our  three  days'  stay  in  Nuevitas  harbor.  So 
also  did  the  fruit  venders,  who  came  out  to 
the  steamer  in  small  boats  and  sold  us  pine- 
apples, tiny  fig  bananas,  and  green  oranges 
at  exorbitant  prices.  The  fruit  looked  infe- 
rior, but  the  flavor  was  good.  Most  of  it 
grew  without  care,  and  in  a  semi-wild  condi- 
tion. The  colonists  were  eager  to  sample 
any  fruit  of  the  country,  as  most  of  them 
were  intending  to  make  fruit  growing  their 
business.  The  "Americanos"  succeeded  in 
waking  up  Nuevitas  in  some  degree,  and  at 
night  a  few  of  them  set  out  to  "paint  the  town 
red."  Only  a  few,  however;  the  great  major- 
ity behaved  remarkably  well.  The  day  was 
spent  in  quietly  inspecting  the  city  and  its 
surroundings.  Many  of  the  visitors  bought 
needed  supplies  at  the  small  stores. 


The  Journey  to  Port  La  Gloria.     35 

Saturday  was  passed  in  the  same  way  as 
Friday,  the  only  incident  of  note  being  a 
small-sized  disturbance  which  took  place  at 
the  pier  near  midnight.  Three  belated  Amer- 
icans, who  had  done  more  than  look  upon 
the  "  aguardiente,"  got  into  a  quarrel  with 
a  Cuban  boatman  in  regard  to  their  return  to 
the  Tiarmotttk.  The  Americans  were  mainly 
at  fault,  the  boatman  was  obstinate,  and  a 
war  of  words  was  soon  followed  by  blows. 
The  boatman  was  getting  the  worst  of  the 
scrimmage  when  several  of  the  Cuban  police 
swooped  down  upon  the  party.  Two  of  the 
Americans  drew  revolvers,  but  they  were 
quickly  disarmed  and  overcome,  one  of  the 
trio,  who  wore  the  uniform  of  the  United 
States  army,  which  he  had  lately  quitted, 
falling  over  into  the  harbor  in  the  scuffle. 
This  sudden  and  unexpected  ducking  ended 
the  fight;  the  "Americanos"  compromised 
with  the  boatman,  and  were  allowed  to  return 
to  the  Yarmouth.  These  intending  colonists 
did  not  remain  long  at  La  Gloria,  although 
one  of  the  three  purposes  to  return.  The 
conduct  of  the  Cuban  police  upon  this  occa- 
sion, and  upon  all  others  which  came  under 
my  notice,  was  entirely  creditable.  They 
dress  neatly,  are  sober  and  inoffensive  in 


36  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

manner,  and  appear  to  perform  their  duties 
conscientiously  and  well. 

While  we  lay  in  Nuevitas  harbor  we  re- 
ceived several  visits  from  Gen.  A.  L.  Bres- 
ler  and  the  Hon.  Peter  E.  Park,  president 
and  resident  manager,  respectively,  of  the 
Cuban  Land  and  Steamship  Company,  both 
of  whom  had  been  stopping  in  the  city  for 
some  time.  They  had  acquired  the  Cuban 
dress  and,  to  some  extent,  Cuban  habits.  Mr. 
Park  decided  to  accompany  the  colonists  to 
La  Gloria,  and  to  share  with  them  all  the 
hardships  that  they  might  encounter  on  the 
journey.  It  was  no  new  thing  for  Mr.  Park 
to  make  the  trip.  He  had  made  it  slowly 
along  the  coast  in  a  small  sailboat ;  he  had 
made  it  in  quicker  time  in  a  steam  launch, 
and  he  had  sometimes  gone  overland  on 
horseback,  struggling  through  mud  and 
water  and  tangled  vines,  swimming  swollen 
rivers  and  creeks,  and  righting  swarms  of 
aggressive  mosquitoes  in  the  dense  woods. 
He  knew  exactly  what  was  before  him  ;  the 
colonists  did  not.  General  Bresler,  strange 
to  say,  had  never  been  at  La  Gloria. 

It  was  on  Sunday  afternoon,  at  a  little  past 
one  o'clock,  that  the  colonists  finally  got  away 
from  Nuevitas  and  made  the  start  for  La 


The  Journey  to  Port  La  Gloria.     37 

Gloria.  The  fleet  consisted  of  three  small 
schooners  loaded  with  light  baggage,  a  little 
freight,  and  nearly  two  hundred  passengers. 
Two  of  the  boats  were  Nuevitas  lighters, 
with  Cuban  captains  and  crew,  while  the 
third  was  a  schooner  from  Lake  Worth, 
Florida,  carrying  about  twenty  colonists  from 
that  state.  This  boat,  known  as  the  Emily  B., 
had  arrived  at  Nuevitas  a  day  or  two  before 
the  Yarmouth.  Among  her  passengers  were 
four  or  five  women.  The  heavy  baggage  of 
the  Yarmouth  colonists  was  loaded  upon  yet 
another  lighter,  which  was  to  follow  later. 

The  colonists  embarked  upon  the  sailing 
craft  from  the  decks  of  the  Yarmouth,  leav- 
ing behind  a  score  or  more  of  their  number 
whose  backbone  had  collapsed  or  who  for 
some  other  reason  had  decided  to  return  home 
immediately.  It  is,  I  believe,  a  veritable  fact 
that  more  than  one  of  the  intending  colonists 
went  back  on  the  same  boat  without  so  much 
as  setting  foot  on  the  soil  of  Cuba.  Probably 
examples  of  the  "chocolate  eclair"  backbone 
are  to  be  found  everywhere.  One  of  the  re- 
turning voyagers  was  a  tall,  thin  man  of 
middle  age,  wearing  a  long,  red,  sorrowful 
face.  It  had  been  apparent  from  the  very 
start  that  his  was  an  aggravated  case  of 


38  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

home-sickness.  He  had  shown  unmistakable 
evidence  of  it  before  the  Yarmouth  had  even 
left  North  river,  and  he  did  not  improve  as 
the  vessel  approached  the  coast  of  Cuba.  He 
rarely  spoke  to  anybody,  and  could  be  seen 
hour  after  hour  kneeling  in  a  most  dejected  atti- 
tude upon  a  cushioned  seat  in  the  main  saloon, 
gazing  mournfully  out  of  the  window  at  the 
stern  across  the  broad  waters.  His  was  about 
the  most  striking  example  of  sustained  melan- 
choly that  ever  came  under  my  observation, 
and  could  not  seem  other  than  ridiculous  in 
that  company.  When  we  slowly  moved  away 
from  the  Yarmouth,  I  was  not  surprised  to  see 
this  man  standing  silently  upon  the  steamer's 
deck.  The  look  of  unillumined  dejection 
was  still  upon  his  face.  A  man  whose  face 
does  not  light  up  under  the  subtle  charm  of 
the  Cuban  atmosphere  is,  indeed,  a  hopeless 
case,  and  ought  not  to  travel  beyond  the  limits 
of  the  county  wherein  lies  his  home.  There 
were  others  who  remained  behind  on  the 
Yarmouth  for  better  reasons.  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Crandall  returned  to  New  York  because  the 
company's  sawmill,  which  he  was  to  operate, 
had  not  been  taken  to  La  Gloria  and  was  not 
likely  to  be  for  some  time  to  come.  Mrs. 
Crandall  was  the  only  woman  passenger  on 


The  Journey  to  Port  La  Gloria.     39 


the  voyage  down  and  had  been  fearfully  sea- 
sick all  the  way.  Orders  had  been  given  that 
no  women  or  children  should  be  taken  on  this 
first  excursion,  but  an  exception  was  made  in 
the  case  of  Mrs.  Crandall  because  she  was 
the  wife  of  an  employe  of  the  company. 

The  departing  colonists  waved  their  good-bys 
to  the  Yarmouth,  and  the  little  fleet  was  towed 
out  to  the  entrance  of  Nuevitas  harbor,  about 
ten  miles,  when  the  schooners  came  to  anchor 
and  the  tugboat  returned  to  the  city.  Although 
it  was  but  little  past  three  o'clock  and  the 
weather  fine,  the  passengers  learned  to  their 
dismay  that  the  boats  had  anchored  for  the 
night.  The  furrowed-faced  old  captain 
would  take  no  chances  with  the  open  sea  at 
night  and  so  would  proceed  no  farther.  "  To- 
morrow— four  o'clock — wind  right — go  !  "  he 
said,  with  a  dramatic  gesture  and  what  seemed 
to  the  colonists  an  unnecessarily  explosive 
emphasis  on  the  last  word. 

The  boats  were  anchored  in  the  narrow 
entrance  to  the  harbor,  where  the  smooth- 
running  tide  closely  resembled  a  river.  On 
one  bank,  one  hundred  yards  away,  were  an 
old  stone  fort  and  a  few  Cuban  shacks.  Some 
of  the  passengers  were  desirous  of  going 
ashore  to  see  the  fort  and  the  houses,  but 


40  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

neither  entreaties  nor  bribes  could  force  the 
old  Cuban  captain  to  allow  the  use  of  his  small 
boats.  The  Cubans  are  fond  of  waiting  and 
cannot  appreciate  American  restlessness.  So 
we  were  obliged  to  sit  quietly  and  gaze  wist- 
fully at  the  green-clad  shore.  As  night  came 
on,  it  was  found  that  loaves  of  bread  and  large 
chunks  of  salt  beef  constituted  the  larder.  It 
was  poor  fare,  but  the  colonists  accepted  the 
situation  cheerfully  and  broke  bread  and  ate 
as  much  of  the  greasy  meat  as  they  could. 

It  was  a  radiant  evening,  with  soft,  caress- 
ing breezes  and  a  starlit  sky  of  incomparable 
beauty.  Many  of  the  voyagers  saw  the  famed 
Southern  Cross  for  the  first  time  and  gazed  at 
it  long  in  silent  contemplation,  overcome  by 
that  delicious  feeling  of  dreamy  content  which 
takes  possession  of  one  in  the  tropics.  On 
one  of  the  boats,  religious  services  were  held, 
conducted  by  a  Georgia  clergyman,  the  Rev. 
A.  E.  Seddon  of  Atlanta,  one  of  the  most  en- 
thusiastic and  uncomplaining  of  the  colonists. 
The  singing  of  hymns  was  joined  in  by  many 
of  the  eighty-seven  passengers  on  the  boat, 
and  prayers  were  offered  by  no  less  than  four 
individuals.  It  was  a  singularly  impressive 
scene,  not  altogether  unlike  what  took  place 
on  board  the  Mayflower  centuries  before. 


The  Journey  to   Port  La  Gloria.     41 

The  peaceful  evening  was  followed  by  a 
night  of  great  discomfort.  The  passengers 
were  crowded  together,  and  many  slept,  or 
attempted  to  sleep,  on  boxes,  barrels,  or  the 
lumber  which  formed  a  part  of  the  cargo  of 
the  schooner.  I  slept,  at  intervals,  on  the 
lumber  designed  for  the  hotel  at  La  Gloria. 
Often  had  I  slept  in  hotels,  but  this  was  my 
first  experience  in  sleeping  on  one.  Some  of 
the  passengers  on  the  schooners  sat  up  all 
night  in  preference  to  lying  upon  boxes  and 
lumber.  We  were  not,  however,  without 
entertainment  during  that  long,  wearisome 
night.  We  had  a  philosopher  among  us,  in 
the  person  of  quaint  old  Benjamin  Franklin — 
of  Griffin's  Corners,  New  York — who  talked 
earnestly  and  eloquently  upon  his  appalling 
experiences  in  Confederate  military  prisons 
many  years  before.  The  handful  of  soldiers 
of  the  Spanish  war  were  modestly  silent  in 
the  presence  of  this  gaunt  old  veteran  of  the 
great  civil  strife.  Judge  Groesbeck,  of  Wash- 
ington, D.  C.,  quoted  poetry  and  told 
anecdotes  and  stories,  while  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Seddon,  Dr.  W.  P.  Peirce  of  Hoopeston,  111., 
and  others,  contributed  their  share  to  the  con- 
versation. As  we  became  drowsy,  we  could 
hear,  now  and  again,  some  one  of  our  com- 


42  Pioneering  in   Cuba. 

panions  giving  an  imitation  of  the  Cuban 
captain:  "To-morrow — four  o'clock — wind 
right  — go  !  " 

Early  in  the  morning,  true  to  his  word,  the 
captain   set  sail,  and   as  the   wind  was  right 


AN  INVOLUNTARY  BATH. 

good  progress  was  made.  One  of  the  divert- 
ing incidents  of  the  morning  was  the  fall  of 
the  captain  overboard.  In  the  crowded  con- 
dition of  the  boat,  he  lost  his  footing  and  went 
over  backward  into  the  water.  He  scrambled 
back  again  in  a  hurry,  with  a  look  of  deep 


The  Journey  to  Port  La  Gloria.     43 

disgust  upon  his  rather  repulsive  face,  but  the 
inconsiderate  "Americanos"  greeted  him 

O 

with  a  roar  of  laughter.  One  enterprising 
amateur  photographer  secured  a  snapshot  of 
him  as  he  emerged  dripping  from  his  invol- 
untary bath.  A  little  later  one  of  the  Cubans 
caught  a  handsome  dolphin,  about  two  feet 
and  a  half  long.  The  crew  cooked  it  and 
served  it  up  at  ten  cents  a  plate.  As  our 
schooner,  drawing  five  feet  of  water,  entered 
the  inlet  about  fifteen  miles  from  the  port  of 
La  Gloria,  she  .dragged  roughly  over  the 
rocky  bottom  for  some  distance  and  came  per- 
ilously near  suffering  misfortune.  The  other 
schooners  came  in  collision  at  about  this  time 
and  a  panic  ensued.  No  serious  damage  re- 
sulted, however.  It  was  between  twelve  and 
one  o'clock  that  afternoon  that  the  port  of  La 
Gloria  was  sighted. 


CHAPTER   III. 
A  TOUGH  TRAMP  TO  LA  GLORIA  CITY. 

As  the  fleet  of  schooners  drew  near  La 
Gloria  port,  a  row  of  small  tents  was  dis- 
cerned close  to  the  shore.  Elsewhere  there 
was  a  heavy  growth  of  bushes  to  the  water's 
edge — the  mangroves  and  similar  vegetation 
fairly  growing  out  into  the  sea.  Between 
and  around  the  tents  was  a  wretched  slough 
of  sticky,  oozy  mud  nearly  a  foot  deep,  with 
streams  of  surface  water  flowing  over  it  in 
places  into  the  bay.  The  colonists  were 
filled  with  excitement  and  mingled  emotions 
as  they  approached  the  shore,  but  their  hearts 
sank  when  they  surveyed  this  discouraging 
scene.  They  landed  on  the  rude  pier,  and 
after  much  difficulty  succeeded  in  depositing 
their  light  baggage  in  tents  reserved  for  the 
purpose.  Narrow  boards  laid  down  to  walk 
on  were  covered  with  slippery  mud,  and  some 
lost  their  footing  and  went  over  headforemost 
into  the  slough.  One  jaunty,  well-dressed 
young  man  from  New  Jersey,  who  had  found 
the  trip  vastly  entertaining  up  to  this  point, 


A  Tough  Tramp  to  La  Gloria.      45 

was  so  disgusted  at  suffering  a  ' '  flop-over " 
into  the  mire  that  he  turned  immediately  back 
and  returned  to  his  home  in  Atlantic  City. 
And  so  the  sifting  process  went  on  among  the 
intending  colonists. 

The  conditions  at  the  port  at  that  time  were 
certainly  most  unpleasant.  Mud  and  water 
were  on  every  hand,  and  sand  flies  were  as 
thick  as  swarms  of  bees,  and  nearly  as  fero- 
cious ;  they  allowed  no  one  any  peace.  The 
company  had  considerately  provided  coffee 
and  bread  for  the  landing  "  immigrants,"  and 
something  of  the  sort  was  certainly  needed  to 
fortify  them  for  what  was  to  follow.  Lunch 
over,  such  of  the  colonists  as  had  not  decided 
to  turn  back  started  for  the  "city"  of  La 
Gloria,  four  miles  inland.  We  found  that 
the  electric  cars  were  not  running,  that  the 
'bus  line  was  not  in  operation,  and  that  we 
could  not  take  a  carriage  to  the  hotel ;  nor 
was  there  a  volante,  a  wagon,  a  bullock  cart, 
a  horse,  mule,  or  pony  in  evidence.  Neither 
was  there  a  balloon  or  any  other  kind  of 
airship.  We  learned  further  that  a  row- 
boat  could  be  used  only  a  portion  of  the 
way.  Under  the  circumstances,  we  decided 
to  walk. 

The   road,   if  such  it  may  be    called,   led 


A  Tough  Tramp  to  La  Gloria.      47 


through  an  open  savanna,  with  occasional 
belts  of  timber.  There  had  been  heavy  rains 
just  before  our  arrival,  and  the  trail  was  one 
of  the  most  wretched  ever  followed  by  a 
human  being.  For  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
there  was  an  apology  for  a  corduroy  road, 
but  the  logs  composing  it  were  so  irregular 
and  uneven  in  size,  and  had  been  so  disar- 
ranged by  surface  water  and  so  nearly  cov- 
ered with  debris  that  it  all  seemed  to  have 
been  placed  there  to  obstruct  travel  rather 
than  to  facilitate  it.  After  the  corduroy,  the 
trail  was  a  disheartening  mixture  of  water, 
mud,  stumps,  roots,  logs,  briers,  and  branches. 
Now  we  would  be  wading  through  shallow 
water  and  deep  mud  that  almost  pulled  our 
shoes  oft';  then  splashing  through  water  and 
tall,  coarse  grass;  and  again,  carefully 
threading  our  precarious  way  among  ugly 
stumps,  logs,  and  fallen  limbs,  in  water 
above  our  knees.  At  times  the  traveler  found 
himself  almost  afloat  in  the  forest.  He  was 
lucky,  indeed,  if  he  did  not  fall  down,  a  mis- 
fortune which  was  little  less  than  a  tragedy. 
Before  leaving  the  port  we  had  been  advised 
to  remove  our  stockings  and  roll  our  trousers 
above  our  knees.  Few  of  us  had  on  any- 
thing better  than  ordinary  shoes,  and  the 


48 


Pioneering  in   Cuba. 


sensation  of  tramping  through  the  mud  and 
water  with  these  was  far  from  pleasant. 
Many  had  rubber  boots  or  leggings  in  their 
trunks,  but  the  trunks  were  still  at  Nue vitas. 


AUTHOR  ON  ROAD  TO  LA  GLORIA.     (Jan.  8,  1900.) 

Notwithstanding  the  bad  road,  one  hundred 
and  sixty  stout-hearted  colonists  set  out  for 
La  Gloria  between  i  130  and  3  o'clock.  They 
straggled  along  for  miles,  old  men  and  young 
men,  and  even  lame  men  ;  some  with  valises, 


A  Tough  Tramp  to  La  Gloria.      49 

some  with  bundles,  and  many  with  overcoats. 
In  the  lead  was  Peter  E.  Park,  the  Detroit 
lawyer  who  for  months  had  been  acting  as 
the  Cuban  manager  for  the  company.  His 
stalwart  form  was  encased  in  a  suit  of  white 
duck,  and  he  wore  a  broad,  slouch  hat  and 
high,  leather  boots.  He  looked  quite  pic- 
turesque as  he  strode  through  the  mud  and 
water,  apparently  trying  to  impress  the  col- 
onists with  the  idea  that  the  poor  road  was 
nothing  to  justify  making  a  fuss.  Inwardly, 
no  doubt,  he  was  somewhat  sensitive  on  the 
subject  of  the  road  ;  justly  or  unjustly,  the 
colonists  blamed  him  for  its  condition. 

It  was  hot  and  hard  work,  this  four-mile 
walk  under  a  tropical  sun,  but  the  men  bore 
it  with  a  good  deal  of  patience.  I  started 
with  a  pair  of  rubbers  on,  but  was  compelled 
to  abandon  them  before  getting  far,  leaving  a 
large  amount  of  rich  Cuban  soil  in  and  on 
them.  The  scene  which  presented  itself  was 
unique  and  interesting.  All  sorts  of  costumes 
were  worn,  including  some  young  fellows  in 
soldiers'  uniforms,  and  there  was  no  little 
variety  in  the  luggage  carried,  Some  stag- 
gered under  very  heavy  loads.  Quite  a  num- 
ber of  cameras  and  kodaks  were  to  be  seen. 
The  trail  led  through  a  rich  savanna,  soi) 

4 


50  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

which  is  undoubtedly  adapted  to  the  raising 
of  sugar  cane,  rice,  and  cocoanuts.  Many 
palmetto  and  palm  trees  lined  the  way.  One 
could  not  well  view  the  scenery  without  stop- 
ping, for  fear  of  losing  one's  footing.  Thorns 
were  troublesome  and  easily  penetrated  the 
wet  shoes  of  the  weary  travelers.  The  col- 
onists all  agreed  that  this  road  was  the  freest 
from  dust  of  any  they  had  ever  trod. 

At  last,  after  two  hours  of  toil  and  discom- 
fort, we  came  in  sight  of  dry  land  and  the 
camp.  We  had  crossed  two  small  creeks  and 
seen  a  few  unoccupied  native  shacks.  No 
part  of  the  land  had  been  cultivated.  Many 
of  us  had  seen  for  the  first  time  close  at  hand 
the  majestic  royal  palm,  which  is  deservedly 
the  most  distinguished  tree  in  the  island.  It  is 
a  tree  without  branches,  crowned  at  the  top  of 
a  perfectly  straight  shaft  with  a  bunch  of  long, 
graceful,  dark  green  leaves.  The  royal  palm 
rises  to  a  height  of  sixty,  seventy,  and  even 
eighty  feet,  its  symmetrical  shape  and  whitish 
color  giving  it  the  appearance  of  a  marble 
column.  It  bears  no  fruit,  and  affords  little 
shade,  but  it  is  highly  ornamental  and  forms 
a  striking  feature  of  the  landscape.  The  tree 
often  lives  to  be  two  hundred  years  old  ;  it 
has  twenty  leaves,  one  of  which  is  shed  about 


A  Tough  Tramp  to  La  Gloria.      5 1 

once  a  month.  It  has  been  stated  that  the 
seeds  from  a  single  tree  will  support  one 
good-sized  hog. 

As  we  approached  our  destination  we 
passed  two  buxom  women  sitting  on  a  huge 
stump.  They  were  clad  in  shirt  waists, 
belted  trousers  and  leggings,  and  wore  broad 
hats  of  a  masculine  type.  We  silently  won- 
dered if  this  was  the  prevailing  fashion  among 
the  women  of  La  Gloria,  but  soon  found  that 
it  was  not.  Even  the  pair  that  we  had  first 
seen  came  out  a  few  days  later  in  dainty 
skirts  and  feminine  headgear.  Indeed,  we 
found  La  Gloria,  in  some  respects,  more  civ- 
ilized than  we  had  anticipated. 

It  was  late  in  the  afternoon  of  Monday,  Jan- 
uary 8,  1900,  that  the  one  hundred  and  sixty 
members  of  the  first  excursion  to  establish  the 
first  American  colony  in  Cuba,  reached  the 
camp  which  occupied  the  site  of  La  Gloria 
city  of  to-day.  We  found  about  a  dozen 
tents,  and  as  many  more  native  shacks  occu- 
pied by  Cubans  who  were  at  work  for  the 
company.  The  Cubans  numbered  about 
fifty,  and  the  American  employes  nearly  as 
many  more.  There  were  also  a  few  Florida 
and  other  settlers  who  had  reached  the  spot 
early.  Altogether,  the  population  just  before 


COL.  THOMAS  H.  MAGINNISS. 


A  Tough  Tramp  to  La  Gloria.      53 

our  arrival  was  about  one  hundred,  seven  or 
eight  of  whom  were  women. 

The  white  city  grew  rapidly  after  we  ap- 
peared on  the  scene.  The  company  had 
tents,  which  we  were  obliged  to  put  up  for 
ourselves,  and  it  was  several  hours  before  we 
had  opportunity  to  even  partially  dry  our  wet 
feet  and  shoes.  All  that  evening  little  groups 
of  barefooted  men  could  be  seen  gathered 
around  camp-fires,  drying  themselves  and 
their  clothing.  The  distribution,  location,  and 
erection  of  the  tents  was  placed  in  charge  of 
Col.  Thomas  H.  Maginniss  of  Philadelphia, 
Pa.,  an  ex-officer  of  the  United  States  regular 
army  and  a  veteran  of  the  Civil  War,  who  had 
come  down  among  the  colonists  on  the  Yar- 
mouth. Colonel  Maginniss  was  a  handsome 
man  of  great  stature,  youthful  in  appearance, 
mentally  alert  and  physically  active,  with 
very  prepossessing  manners.  Although  a  little 
past  fifty  years  of  age,  he  looked  to  be  hardly 
more  than  forty.  He  was  a  favorite  from  the 
start,  and  aside  from  being  a  picturesque  per- 
sonality, soon  became  an  influential  power 
among  the  colonists.  So  efficiently  did  he 
perform  his  duties  in  supervising  the  erection 
of  the  tent  city,  that  a  little  later  he  was  regu- 
larly given  the  position  of  superintendent  of 


54  Pioneering-  in  Cuba. 

camp,  in  the  employ  of  the  company.  He 
held  this  post  until  his  return  to  the  States, 
early  in  April. 

Our  first  night  in  La  Gloria  was  not  one  of 
sybaritic  pleasure.  We  were  able  to  secure 
some  poor  cots  and  one  thin  blanket  apiece. 
This  was  insufficient,  for  the  nights,  or  rather 
the  early  mornings,  were  quite  cold.  Some 
of  the  men  were  obliged  to  sit  up  all  night  to 
gather  warmth  from  fires.  The  rotten  cloth 
on  the  cots  went  to  pieces,  in  most  cases,  be- 
fore the  night  was  over,  and,  altogether,  sleep 
was  at  a  premium.  Many  of  the  tents  were 
crowded  ;  in  mine  were  eight  persons,  repre- 
senting nearly  as  many  states.  Fortunately, 
the  insects  gave  us  very  little  trouble.  The 
population  of  the  camp  that  first  night  must 
have  been  nearly  three  hundred,  and  the  next 
day  it  increased  to  quite  that  number. 


While  the  colonists  did  not  arrive  at  La 
Gloria  in  any  considerable  numbers  until  Jan- 
uary, 1900,  the  preliminary  operations  began 
there  on  October  9,  1899,  when  Chief  Engi- 
neer J.  C.  Kelly  landed  with  a  survey  corps 
from  Texas.  It  was  a  splendid  corps  of 
bright,  hardy,  plucky,  indefatigable  men, 
skilful  in  their  work  and  under  discipline  as 


A  Tough  Tramp  to  La  Gloria.      55 

rigid  as  that  of  an  army.  Chief  Kelly  was 
from  Eagle  Lake,  Texas,  in  which  state  he 
had  become  well  known  through  the  perform- 
ance of  a  great  deal  of  important  work.  He 
was  an  exceedingly  capable  engineer,  a  strict 
but  just  disciplinarian,  a  good  financier,  and 
at  all  times  highly  popular  with  his  men, 
whose  devotion  to  him  was  as  striking  as  that 
often  shown  by  soldiers  to  their  colonel  or 
their  general.  Mr.  Kelly  was  an  interesting 
talker,  and  an  athlete  and  amateur  imperson- 
ator of  no  mean  pretensions.  With  him  he 
brought,  as  assistant  chief,  Mr.  H.  O.  Neville, 
a  well-educated,  versatile,  and  agreeable 
young  man.  Among  the  others  in  the  Texas 
party  were  Sam  M.  Van  der  Voort,  son  of  the 
general,  and  I.  G.  Wirtz,  both  of  whom  later 
became  instrument  men.  S.  H.  Packer,  also 
of  Texas,  was  one  of  the  corps.  From  New 
York  came  F.  Kimble  and  J.  A.  Messier,  the 
latter  familiarly  known  as  "Albany,"  and 
from  Havana,  B.  B.  Lindsley,  all  three  serv- 
ing later  as  instrument  men  more  or  less  of 
the  time.  All  the  men  above  mentioned  were 
efficient  surveyors  and  good  fellows,  each 
something  of  a  "character"  in  his  way. 
Among  other  early  arrivals,  most  of  whom 
were  attached  to  the  survey  corps,  were  O.  V. 


56  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

De  Long  of  Havana,  H.  L.  Starker  of  Chi- 
cago, David  Porter  of  Detroit,  Richard  Head 
of  Florida,  J.  A.  McCauley  of  New  York, 
Will  Corlett,  and  Jack  Griffith. 

The  experiences  of  the  members  of  the 
survey  corps  at  La  Gloria  had  been  a  con- 
tinued story  of  hardship,  privation,  and  ex- 
posure. They  came  in  before  the  rainy  sea- 
son had  ended,  pushing  their  toilsome  way 
through  tangled  vines  and  thorny  thickets, 
wading  through  mud  and  water,  and  often 
being  compelled  to  swim  swollen  creeks. 
Much  of  the  time  they  patiently  worked  knee 
deep  or  waist  deep  in  water,  covered  with 
swarms  of  mosquitoes  or  other  pestiferous 
insects.  Often  they  had  little  to  eat  save 
cornmeal  "mush"  and  boniatos  (sweet 
potatoes)  ;  but  for  all  this,  they  were  seldom 
ill  and  rarely  made  a  complaint.  Sleeping 
in  their  wet  clothes,  which  would  not  dry  in 
the  dampness  of  the  night,  they  were  up 
early  each  morning  ready  for  another  day's 
attack  upon  the  jungle.  The  fact  that  they 
were  not  more  often  sick  is  the  best  testi- 
monial to  the  healthfulness  of  the  climate  of 
northeastern  Cuba  that  has  come  under  my 
notice.  It  speaks  volumes,  especially  when 
it  is  known  that  a  little  later  men  from  the 


A  Tough  Tramp  to  La  Gloria.      57 

Northern  states,  and  even  British  Columbia, 
worked  on  the  survey  corps  under  similar 
conditions  and  with  like  immunity  from  seri- 
ous illness.  Occasionally,  to  be  sure,  they 
would  be  poisoned  from  standing  too  long  in 
water  or  coming  in  contact  with  the  giiao 
tree,  or  shrub,  but  this  affliction,  while  severe, 
was  never  fatal.  The  good  work  faithfully 
and  uncomplainingly  performed  by  the  sur- 
vey corps  in  and  around  La  Gloria,  under 
such  trying  circumstances,  is  worthy  of  as 
much  praise  and  admiration  as  a  successful 
military  campaign.  It  required  courage, 
skill,  and  patient  endurance  to  move  upon 
and  tame  this  tropical  forest  on  the  north 
coast  of  Cuba. 

A  handful  of  colonists  followed  the  survey 
corps  into  La  Gloria  at  intervals,  the  first 
ladies  coming  in  December.  These  were 
Mrs.  D.  E.  Lowell  and  Mrs.  W.  G.  Spiker: 
they  came  with  their  husbands.  Mr.  Lowell 
had  been  a  prosperous  orange  and  pineapple 
grower  in  Florida  until  the  great  freeze  came, 
and  Mr.  Spiker  was  a  successful  photographer 
in  Ohio  before  leaving  his  state  to  find  him  a 
new  home  in  the  tropics.  The  Lowells  and 
Spikers  were  intelligent  and  cultivated  people 
who  had  been  accustomed  to  a  good  style  of 


58  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

living,  but  who  were  now  ready  to  undertake 
a  rough,  pioneer  life  in  the  strong  hope  of  a 
bright  future.  The  party  landed  at  Palota,. 
northwest  of  La  Gloria,  and  came  in  with 
horses  and  wagon  of  their  own,  following  the 
roughest  kind  of  trail  for  the  larger  part  of 
nine  miles.  It  was  a  hard  and  perilous  trip  ; 
only  with  the  greatest  difficulty  could  the 
horses  draw  the  load  through  the  heavy  mud 
and  over  the  deeply  gullied  road.  More  than 
once  the  team  seemed  hopelessly  stuck,  but 
was  extricated  after  a  time  and  the  toilsome 
journey  continued.  At  last  the  bedraggled 
party  reached  La  Gloria,  and  the  first  women 
colonists  set  foot  on  the  soil  of  the  future 
Cuban-American  city.  When  the  Yarmouth 
colonists  arrived,  the  Lowells  and  Spikers 
had  been  living  at  La  Gloria  for  several 
weeks;  they  were  well  and  happy,  and 
pleased  with  the  climate  and  the  country. 


CHAPTER   IV. 
FIRST  DAYS  IN  THE  NEW  COLONY. 

THE  first  few  days  after  our  arrival  we  led 
a  strange  and  what  seemed  to  many  of  us  an 
unreal  life.  Shut  into  a  small  open  space  by 
a  great  forest,  with  no  elevation  high  enough 
for  us  to  see  even  so  much  of  the  outside 
world  as  hills,  mountains,  or  the  sea,  it 
almost  seemed  as  if  we  had  dropped  off  of 
the  earth  to  some  unknown  planet.  Day 
after  day  passed  without  our  seeing  the  hori- 
zon, or  hearing  a  locomotive  or  steamboat 
whistle.  We  had  no  houses,  only  tents,  and 
there  was  not  a  wooden  building  of  any  sort 
within  a  dozen  miles.  At  night  the  camp 
was  dimly  lighted  by  flickering  fires  and  the 
starry  sky,  and  through  the  semi-darkness 
came  the  hollow,  indistinct  voices  of  men 
discussing  the  outlook  for  the  future.  There 
were  always  some  who  talked  the  larger  part 
of  the  night,  and  others  who  invariably  rose 
at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  ;  this  was  two 
hours  before  light.  In  the  deep  forest  at 
night  were  heard  strange  sounds,  but  high 


<3o  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

above  them  all,  every  night  and  the  whole  of 
the  night,  the  harsh,  complaining  note  of  a 
certain  bird  who  seemed  to  be  eternally 
unreconciled  to  the  departure  of  day.  I  think 
it  was  a  bird,  but  it  may  have  been  the  wail 
of  a  lost  soul. 

It  was  lonesome  there  in  the  wilds  of  Cuba 
in  those  early  days  of  the  new  colony,  and 
doubtless  there  was  some  homesickness,  but 
the  reader  should  not  gain  the  impression  that 
the  pioneers  were  downcast  and  unhappy. 
On  the  contrary,  they  were  delighted  with 
the  climate  and  the  country,  despite  the  diffi- 
culties encountered  in  entering  it  and  the 
deprivations  which  had  to  be  put  up  with. 
From  the  first,  the  colonists,  generally  speak- 
ing, were  more  than  cheerful ;  they  were 
happy  and  contented.  Buoyant  in  spirits, 
eager  to  explore  and  acquire  information  con- 
cerning the  surrounding  country,  they  enjoyed 
the  pioneer  life  with  the  keenest  relish. 
They  laughed  at  the  hardships  and  priva- 
tions, made  friends  with  each  other  and  with 
the  Cubans,  and  tramped  the  woods  and 
trails  with  reckless  disregard  of  mud  and 
water  and  thorny  underbrush.  The  men 
were  astonished  to  find  themselves  in  such 
•excellent  health ;  the  more  they  exposed 


First  Days  in  the  New  Colony.     61 

themselves,  the  more  they  seemed  to  thrive,, 
until  nearly  every  man  in  the  colony  was 
ready  to  say  that  he  was  better  physically 
and  mentally  than  when  he  left  home.  It 
was  the  same  with  the  women,  whose  im- 
proved health,  entire  cheerfulness,  and  evi- 
dent contentment  were  a  revelation  to  the 
observer.  There  are  many  women  who  take 
as  readily  to  a  pioneer  life  as  do  the  men. 
This  was  notably  the  case  in  La  Gloria. 

The  colonists  had  not  come  to  La  Gloria 
in  search  of  a  health  resort — at  least,  the 
great  majority  had  not — but  that  is  what  they 
found.  Scarcely  had  we  set  foot  on  the  soil 
of  Cuba  when  those  of  us  who  had  catarrh — 
and  what  Yankee  has  not? — found  that  we 
no  longer  suffered  from  the  affliction.  This 
cure,  which  proved  permanent,  was  some- 
thing the  majority  of  us  had  not  counted  on. 
Nor  had  we  counted  on  the  entire  freedom 
from  colds  which  we  enjoyed  in  the  island. 
But  the  cure  of  catarrh  was  of  small  import- 
ance in  comparison  with  the  sudden  and 
marked  improvement  in  those  who  suffered 
from  nervous  diseases.  It  is  not  too  much 
to  say,  that  many  found  the  soothing  Cuban 
climate  a  specific  for  such  disease  which  they 
had  not  dreamt  of  in  their  philosophy.  Those 


62  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

with  kidney  ailments  and  rheumatism  re- 
ported themselves  improved,  and  there  was 
not  wanting  evidence  that  persons  with  con- 
sumptive tendencies  and  other  weaknesses 
would  find  the  air  salubrious  and  a  residence 
in  this  part  of  the  island  beneficial. 

The  temperature  at  this  time  was  delight- 
ful, a  close  approach  to  perfection,  the  ther- 
mometer ranging  from  70°  to  84°  at  noon, 
and  rarely  falling  below  60°  at  any  time  of 
day.  It  still  rained  frequently,  an  unusual 
and  remarkable  prolongation  of  the  rainy 
season,  which  ordinarily  ends  in  November, 
but  the  water  fell  in  brief  showers  and  left 
the  rest  of  the  day  bright  and  clear.  Indeed, 
it  was  not  until  February  that  the  rain  ceased 
altogether  and  the  dry  season  fairly  began. 
The  Cubans  declared  that  they  had  never 
known  the  wet  season  to  continue  so  late. 

The  long  continued  rains  were  held  respon- 
sible, perhaps  justly  so,  for  many  of  the  in- 
conveniences and  drawbacks  which  the  col- 
onists encountered.  The  company  stoutly 
declared  that  to  these  unusual  meteorological 
conditions  was  due  the  failure  to  build  the 
road  to  the  port  which  had  been  promised, 
and  that  the  absence  of  the  road  prevented 
the  transportation  of  the  lumber  for  the  con- 


First  Days  in  the  New  Colony.     63 

struction  of  the  hotel.  This  latter  assertion 
was  true  beyond  all  question.  The  "  hotel  " 
was  a  subject  of  much  comment  and  immod- 
erate mirth.  It  existed  on  paper  in  spacious 
and  imposing  elegance ;  it  was  a  splendid 
structure  of  the  imagination.  But  let  it  not 
be  thought  for  one  moment  that  the  hotel  was 
wholly  a  myth.  Not  so  ;  the  situation  would 
not  have  been  half  so  funny  if  it  had  been. 
There  stood  the  foundation  for  the  immense 
building  squarely  across  Central  avenue, 
about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  back  from  the  front 
line  of  the  town.  A  large  space  had  been 
cleared  in  the  forest,  and  the  centre  of  this 
opening  was  the  hotel  site.  The  foundation 
consisted  of  large  logs  of  hard  wood,  sawed 
about  four  feet  long  and  stood  upright.  They 
were  set  in  cement  on  stone  that  was  sunk 
slightly  below  the  surface  of  the  ground. 
How  many  of  these  logs  there  were  I  cannot 
say,  but  there  was  a  small  army  of  them, 
aligned  across  Central  avenue  and  extending 
far  to  either  side.  Under  the  dim  light  of 
the  stars  they  looked  like  a  regiment  of 
dwarfs  advancing  to  attack  the  camp.  Work- 
men were  putting  the  finishing  touches  on 
this  foundation  when  we  arrived,  but  the 
work  was  soon  discontinued  altogether,  leav- 


First  Days  in  the  New  Colony.     65 

ing  the  wooden  army  to  serve  as  an  outpost 
of  slowly  advancing  civilization.  Of  course, 
we  always  directed  new  arrivals  to  the 
"hotel"  as  soon  as  they  came  in  over  the 
"road"  from  the  port!  After  a  while  we 
became  so  fond  of  the  hotel  joke  that  I  think 
we  should  have  been  sorry  to  see  the  building 
completed. 

The  bad  road  to  the  port  also  cut  off  all 
chance  of  getting  the  sawmill  up  to  La 
Gloria,  and  it  daily  became  more  evident 
that  we  should  continue  to  dwell  in  tents  for 
some  time  to  come.  We  were  destitute 
enough  during  those  first  days  in  the  colony. 
Our  trunks  had  not  come,  and  did  not  for 
several  weeks,  and  many  of  us  were  without 
change  of  clothing  or  even  a  towel.  We 
washed  in  a  small  creek  which  ran  through 
the  Cuban  camp,  wiping  our  hands  and  faces 
on  handkerchiefs.  This  and  other  creeks 
served  us  well  for  drinking  water,  and  there 
was  also  an  excellent  spring  on  the  com- 
pany's reserve  north  of  the  town.  Very  little 
freight  could  be  brought  up  from  the  port, 
and  hence  it  was  that  we  were  not  over-well 
supplied  with  provisions.  There  was  usually 
enough  in  quantity,  but  the  quality  was  poor 
and  there  was  a  painful  lack  of  variety.  The 
5 


66  Pioneering  in   Cuba. 

•engineer  corps'  cook  house  was  hastily  en- 
larged into  a  public  restaurant  upon  our 
.•arrival,  and  did  the  best  it  could  to  feed  the 
hungry  colonists.  Some  of  the  latter  boarded 
themselves  from  the  start — purchasing  what 
supplies  they  could  get  at  the  commissary— 
.and  perhaps  had  a  shade  the  best  of  it. 

I  shall  never  forget  my  first  supper  in 
La  Gloria.  It  was  at  the  company's  restau- 
rant. We  were  crowded  together  on  long, 
•movable  benches,  under  a  shelter  tent.  Be- 
fore us  were  rough  board  tables  innocent 
.of  cloth.  The  jejines  (gnats  or  sand  flies) 
:swarmed  about  us,  disputing  our  food  and 
•drink  and  even  the  air  we  breathed.  The 
food  was  not  served  in  courses ;  it  came  on 
all  at  once,  and  the  "  all"  consisted  of  cold 
(bread  without  butter,  macaroni,  and  tea  with- 
•out  milk.  There  were  not  even  toothpicks 
•or  glasses  of  water.  Amid  the  struggling 
humanity,  and  regardless  of  the  inhumanity 
•of  the  jejines  (pronounced  by  the  Cubans 
"haheens"),  my  gentlemanly  friend  from 
Medfield,  Mass.,  sat  at  my  right  and  calmly 
ate  his  supper  with  evident  relish.  He  was 
fond  of  macaroni  and  tea.  Alas  !  I  was  not. 
At  home  he  had  been  an  employe  in  an 
insane  asylum.  I,  alas  !  had  not  enjoyed 


First  Days  in  the  New  Colony.     67 


the  advantages  of  such  wholesome  discipline. 
Of  that  supper  I  remember  three  things  most 
distinctly — the  jejines,  my,  friend's  fondness 
for  macaroni  and  tea,  and  the  saintly  patience 
and  good-humor  of  our  waiter,  Al  Noyes. 

It  was  not  long  before  there  was  an  im- 
provement in  the  fare,  although  no  great 
variety  was  obtainable.  We  usually  had, 
however,  the  best  there  was  in  camp.  The 
staples  were  salt  beef,  bacon,  beans,  and 
sweet  potatoes  or  yams,  and  we  sometimes 
had  fresh  pork  (usually  wild  hog),  fried 
plantains,  and  thin,  bottled  honey.  We  often 
had  oatmeal  or  corn  meal  mush,  and  occa- 
sionally we  rejoiced  in  a  cook  whose  culinary 
talent  comprehended  the  ability  to  make  frit- 
ters. The  bread  was  apt  to  be  good,  and  we 
had  Cuban  coffee  three  times  a  day.  We 
had  no  butter,  and  only  condensed  milk.  It 
was  considerably  later,  when  I  ate  at  the 
chief  engineer's  table,  that  we  feasted  on 
flamingo  and  increased  our  muscular  devel- 
opment by  struggling  with  old  goat.  If  it 
had  been  Chattey's  goat,  no  one  would  have 
complained,  but  unfortunately  it  was  not. 
Chattey  was  our  cook,  and  he  kept  several 
goats,  one  of  which  had  a  pernicious  habit  of 
hanging  around  the  dining  tent.  One  day, 


First  Days  in  the  New.  Colony.     69 

just  before  dinner,  he  was  discovered  sitting 
on  a  pie  in  the  middle  of  the  table,  greedily 
eating  soup  out  of  a  large  dish.  Chattey's 
goat  was  a  British  goat,  and  had  no  respect 
for  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  or 
the  table  etiquette  which  obtained  in  the  first 
American  colony  in  Cuba.  The  soup  was 
dripping  from  Billy's  whiskers,  which  he  had 
not  even  taken  the  trouble  to  wipe.  It  is  cer- 
tain that  British  goats  have  no  table  manners. 
But  I  am  getting  ahead  of  my  story.  The 
condition  of  the  road  to  the  port  was  so  bad 
for  some  time  after  our  arrival  that  it  was 
barely  possible  to  get  up  sufficient  provisions 
to  supply  the  daily  needs  of  the  camp,  to  say 
nothing  of  other  freight.  We  were  in  need 
of  almost  everything  to  furnish  our  tents  or  to 
begin  agricultural  operations.  There  was,  to 
be  sure,  the  "  commissary,"  where  the  com- 
pany had  confidently  assured  us  in  its  adver- 
tising literature  "  every  necessary  article  from 
a  plough  to  a  knitting  needle  "  would  be  on 
sale  "at  the  most  reasonable  prices."  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  commissary  was  almost  as 
bare  as  the  famous  cupboard  of  old  Mother 
Hubbard,  and  of  the  commodities  that  were 
stored  there,  very  few  seemed  to  be  for  sale 
to  the  colonists.  After  several  ineffectual 


70  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

attempts  to  get  what  I  wanted,  I  entered  the 
commissary  tent  one  day  to  make  a  test  case. 

-  tt 

Of  Mr.  Richardson,  the  man  in  charge,  I 
blandly  inquired  : 

' '  Can  I  get  a  tin  pail  ?  " 

"  No,"  with  a  gentle  shake  of  the  head. 

"  Can  I  get  any  kind  of  a  pail?" 

"  No,"  with  another  shake. 

"  Can  I  get  a  tin  pan  or  a  wash  basin?" 

"  No,"  with  a  shake. 

"  Can  I  get  a  tin  dish  or  an  earthen  dish  or 
a  wooden  dish?  " 

"  No,"  with  more  shakes. 

"  Can  I  buy  a  tin  cup  or  an  earthen  mug?  " 

"  No,"  with  a  vigorous  shake. 

"  Can  I  buy  a  knife,  fork,  or  spoon?" 

"  No,  no,"  with  two  quick  shakes. 

"  Can  I  buy  a  piece  of  cloth  of  any  kind?  " 

"  No,  sir,"  stiffly. 

"  Can  I  buy  an  empty  box?" 

"No,  sir,  you  can't — need  'em  all  our- 
selves." 

"  Is  there  anything  that  you  have  got  to 
sell?"  I  inquired  meekly. 

"  Well,  there  is  some  mosquito  netting  over 
there." 

I  had  mosquito  netting — but  mosquito  net- 
ting did  not  make  a  very  good  drinking 


First  Days  in  the  New  Colony.      71 

utensil.      I   left  the    commissary   without   in- 
quiring for  a  plough  or  a  knitting  needle. 

The  population  of  La  Gloria  fluctuated 
greatly  during  the  first  week  after  our  ad- 
vent. Our  arrival  and  the  additions  of  the 
following  day  had  brought  the  total  popula- 
tion of  the  camp  up  to  at  least  three  hundred. 
The  wet  and  muddy  trails,  and  the  back- 
wardness of  all  improvements,  increased 
enormously  the  feeling  of  distrust  among  the 
colonists,  and  some  began  to  loudly  question 
the  security  of  titles.  This  alarm,  which  ulti- 
mately proved  to  be  entirely  unfounded,  kept 
the  camp  in  a  ferment  for  a  day  or  two. 
Oceans  of  discussion  were  indulged  in,  Mr. 
Park  was  closely  and  warmly  questioned, 
and  there  was  a  general  feeling  of  uneasiness 
and  unrest.  The  result  was  that  when  the 
last  half  of  the  week  had  begun,  La  Gloria 
had  suffered  a  loss  of  nearly  one  hundred  of 
its  population.  Discouraged  and  disgusted 
men  made  their  way  back  to  the  coast,  hop- 
ing to  get  transportation  to  Nuevitas,  and 
thence  back  to  their  respective  homes. 
There  was  a  delay  at  Port  La  Gloria,  and  a 
few  remained  there  until  they  had  made  up 
their  minds  to  return  to  the  camp.  The 
others  went  on  to  Nuevitas,  but  were  unable 


72  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

to  secure  transportation  at  once  to  the  States. 
The  consequence  was  that  nearly  or  quite 
one  half  eventually  returned  to  La  Gloria, 
straggling  in  from  time  to  time. 

As  the  week  drew  to  a  close  the  town 
quieted  down,  the  restless  spirits  having  de- 
parted. Those  of  us  who  remained  either 
had  faith  in  the  ultimate  success  of  the  proj- 
ect, or  were  at  least  disposed  to  give  the 
enterprise  a  fair  trial.  We  were  not  easily 
stampeded  ;  and  we  placed  some  reliance  on 
Senator  Park's  positive  assurance  that  the 
deeds  would  be  all  right.  We  saw,  of 
course,  that  the  company's  affairs  had  been 
badly  managed,  and  that  promised  improve- 
ments had  not  as  yet  materialized,  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  we  had  learned  from  personal 
observation  that  the  land  was  good,  the  tim- 
ber valuable,  the  drinking  water  pure  and 
abundant,  and  the  climate  delightful  beyond 
description.  The  most  of  those  who  returned 
to  the  States  with  harrowing  tales  either  never 
got  as  far  as  La  Gloria  at  all,  or  else  spent 
less  than  forty-eight  hours  in  the  camp.  The 
majority  of  the  colonists  cheerfully  stuck  by 
the  colony,  and  laughed  at  the  untruthful  and 
exaggerated  newspaper  stories  as  they  were 
sent  down  to  us  from  the  frozen  North. 


CHAPTER   V. 
THE  ALLOTMENT  OF  THE  LAND. 

THE  chief  of  the  immediate  problems 
which  confronted  the  colonists  and  the  offi- 
cers of  the  company  was  the  allotment  of  the 
land.  The  company  had  purchased  it,  or 
secured  options  on  it,  in  large  tracts,  some 
of  these  tracts  containing  over  ten  thousand 
acres  each.  The  colonists  had  contracted 
for  it  in  small  holdings,  varying  from  a  town 
lot,  25  x  loo  feet  in  size,  to  a  forty-acre  tract 
of  plantation  land.  No  more  than  forty  acres 
were  sold  to  any  one  on  a  single  contract. 
The  contracts  which  could  be  made  were, 
respectively,  as  follows :  Town  lots,  three 
sizes,  25  x  100  feet,  50  x  100,  and  50  x  150; 
plantation  land,  2^  acres,  5  acres,  10  acres, 
20  acres,  and  40  acres.  The  purchaser  paid 
in  full  or  on  monthly  instalments,  as  he  pre- 
ferred, being  allowed  a  discount  of  ten  per 
cent,  for  cash.  According  to  the  terms  of  the 
contracts,  he  did  not  purchase  the  land  at  all, 
but  bought  stock  in  a  cooperative  company 
and  the  land  was  a  gift  to  him.  However, 


74  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

the  cooperative  company  feature  was  always 
in  the  background  in  the  mind  of  the  colonist, 
and  he  felt  that  he  was  buying  the  land  and 
almost  invariably  so  termed  the  transaction. 
It  was  the  land  he  had  his  eye  on,  and  his 
present  anxiety  was  to  have  a  good  piece 
promptly  allotted  to  him. 

At  the  company's  headquarters  in  New 
York,  no  plan  of  subdivision  had  been  formu- 
lated further  than  a  general  promise  in  adver- 
tising circulars  to  allot  the  land  in  the  order  of 
the  numbers  of  the  contracts.  At  first  glance, 
this  seemed  both  fair  and  feasible,  but  once  on 
the  ground  at  La  Gloria,  some  very  formida- 
ble difficulties  loomed  up.  Of  the  four  or  five 
thousand  persons  who  had  invested  up  to 
that  time  less  than  three  hundred  were  at  La 
Gloria,  and  there  was  not  in  Cuba  even  a  list 
of  the  people  who  had  made  contracts  with 
the  company,  to  say  nothing  of  their  respec- 
tive holdings  and  the  status  of  their  payments. 
No  such  list  could  be  obtained  from  New 
York  under  several  weeks  or  perhaps  months, 
and  when  obtained  would  be  of  little  value  for 
the  reason  that  there  could  not  possibly  be 
land  enough  surveyed  by  that  time  to  allot 
one  half  of  the  thousands  of  investors.  Sur- 
veying in  this  dense  tropical  forest  was  neces- 


The  Allotment  of  the  Land.         75; 

sarily  slow  work,  and  progress  had  been  im- 
peded by  the  long-continued  rains. 

It  was  manifestly  impossible  to  make  a 
general  allotment  of  the  land  at  once,  and 
yet  it  was  essential  that  the  colonists  who  had 
actually  arrived  on  the  spot  should  be  given 
their  tracts  promptly  and  permitted  to  go  to- 
work  upon  them.  The  life  of  the  colony 
seemed  to  hinge  on  action  of  this  sort.  Quite 
early  the  company  had  stated  that  the  subdi- 
vision would  be  made  about  January  i,  and 
when  General  Van  der  Voort  arrived  in  New 
York  in  the  latter  part  of  December,  he 
assured  the  colonists  who  were  preparing  to 
sail  with  him  to  Cuba  that  they  should  have 
their  land  by  January  15.  This  promise  was 
carried  out  to  the  letter,  and  was  the  only 
rational  course  of  action  that  could  be  pur- 
sued under  the  existing  circumstances.  It 
undoubtedly  saved  the  colony  at  what  was  a 
critical  stage.  During  the  voyage  down,  the 
colonists  on  board  the  Yarmouth  were  greatly 
exercised  over  the  method  of  allotment :  that 
is  to  say,  many  of  them  were,  while  others 
declared  that  they  would  be  satisfied  if  they 
only  got  their  land  promptly.  General  Van 
der  Voort  gave  the  subject  much  anxious  con- 
sideration, seeking  to  devise  a  plan  which 


7  6  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

should  be  at  once  just  and  practical.  He 
finally  decided  that  the  fairest  and  best  thing 
to  do  was  to  place  the  matter  in  the  hands  of 
a  committee  of  the  colonists,  giving  them  the 
power  to  prescribe  the  method  of  allotment 
within  certain  limitations,  subject  to  the  ap- 
proval of  the  colonists  on  the  ground.  The 
general  described  this  as  the  "town-meet- 
ing" principle,  and  his  decision  gave  entire 
satisfaction  to  the  pioneers. 

General  Van  der  Voort  arrived  in  La 
Gloria  Thursday,  January  u,  having  re- 
mained behind  at  Nuevitas  to  see  the  bag- 
gage of  the  colonists  through  the  custom 
house.  This  accomplished,  he  took  passage 
for  La  Gloria  on  board  the  lighter  carrying 
the  trunks,  etc.  The  voyage  was  not  a 
smooth  one.  The  boat  came  near  being 
wrecked  in  the  rough  sea,  and  suffered  the 
loss  of  its  rudder.  Finally  an  anchorage 
was  effected  about  a  dozen  miles  from  the 
La  Gloria  shore,  and  General  Van  der  Voort 
and  others  were  taken  off  in  a  small  boat. 
The  trunks  and  other  baggage  were  not 
landed  until  nearly  a  week  later,  and  it  was 
several  weeks  before  much  of  the  luggage 
reached  La  Gloria  city.  The  contents  of 
many  of  the  trunks  suffered  serious  damage 


The  Allotment  of  the  Land.        77 

from  water  and  mould,  although  in  some  cases, 
the  things  came  through  entirely  uninjured. 

General  Van  der  Voort  rode  from  Port  La 
Gloria  to  the  camp  on  horseback,  a  hard  trip, 
for  the  road  had  not  improved.  The  mud 
and  water  and  debris  made  it  a  slow  and 
exhausting  journey.  He  assumed  charge  or 
the  company's  business  in  the  colony  at  once. 
Arrangements  were  made  for  a  prompt  allot- 
ment of  the  land,  and  a  committee  of  nine 
colonists,  with  Dr.  W.  P.  Peirce  of  Hoopes- 
ton,  111.,  as  chairman,  was  chosen  to  devise  a 
plan  of  distribution.  After  several  prolonged 
sessions,  the  committee  unanimously  reported 
a  scheme  by  which  those  present  should 
select  their  land  from  the  official  map  in  the 
order  of  the  priority  of  their  purchases.  After 
these,  the  investors  having  authorized  repre- 
sentatives on  the  ground,  the  latter  holding 
powers  of  attorney,  were  to  have  their  chance. 
In  this  second  class,  also,  priority  of  purchase 
governed  the  order  of  selection.  The  report 
further  provided  that  the  investor  should  be 
allowed  a  second  choice  if  he  found  his  land 
to  be  unsatisfactory.  This  plan,  which  I  be- 
lieved then  and  believe  now  was  the  best  that 
could  have  been  devised,  was  adopted  by  the 
colonists  with  but  a  single  dissenting  vote. 


78  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

On  Saturday,  January  13,  the  allotment 
began,  in  what  was  known  as  headquarters 
tent.  The  committee  which  had  formulated 
the  plan  of  distribution  was  in  charge,  as- 
.sisted  by  Chief  Engineer  Kelly,  Architect 
Neff,  and  others.  The  town  lots  were  given 
out  first,  and  by  night  nearly  all  who  were 
•entitled  to  make  selections  in  these  classes 
had  been  served.  The  town  lot  distribution 
was  completed  Monday  morning,  the  i5th. 
The  town  was  one  mile  square,  and  had  been 
laid  out  and  surveyed  under  the  supervision  of 
M.  A.  Custer  NefF,  civil  engineer  and  archi- 
tect. It  was  traversed  and  counter-traversed 
iby  streets  and  avenues,  appropriately  named. 
These  were  as  yet,  for  the  most  part,  only 
surveyors'  paths  cut  through  the  forest,  but 
they  were  much  used  as  thoroughfares  to 
reach  town  lots  and  the  plantation  lands  be- 
yond. They  were  rough  roads,  filled  with 
mud,  water,  stumps,  stubble,  and  roots,  but 
with  the  advent  of  the  dry  season  they  became 
more  easily  passable.  The  highway  running 
through  the  centre  of  the  town  to  and  from 
the  coast  was  known  as  Central  avenue,  and 
the  road  passing  through  the  centre  at  right 
angles  was  called  Dewey  street.  Around  the 
intersecting  point,  the  exact  centre  of  the  town, 


The  Allotment  of  the  Land.        79 

space  had  been  reserved  for  a  large  plaza. 
Central  avenue  and  Dewey  street  were  each 
designed  to  be  one  hundred  feet  wide,  and 
were  naturally  the  paths  most  used  by  the 
colonists.  The  former  actually  extended  from 
the  rear  line  of  the  town  northward  to  the 
bay,  five  miles  away, while  the  latter  continued 
from  the  side  lines  of  the  town  out  into  the 
plantation  lands  to  the  east  and  west.  The 
town  site  was  well  chosen.  It  has  a  fair  ele- 
vation above  the  sea,  a  firm,  hard  soil,  with 
steadily  rising  ground.  The  front  line  of  the 
town  is  about  twenty  feet  above  tidewater  ;  the 
centre  about  one  hundred  feet,  and  the  rear 
line  nearly  or  quite  two  hundred  feet.  Around 
the  town  was  a  belt  of  land  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
wide  reserved  by  the  company  ;  then  came 
the  plantations  on  every  side. 

When  the  committee  finished  the  allotment 
of  town  lots  on  the  morning  of  January  15,  it 
was  found  that  nearly  five  hundred  lots  had 
been  taken  up  out  of  a  total  in  all  classes  of 
about  three  thousand  six  hundred.  The  col- 
onists had  not  been  slow  in  selecting  corner 
lots,  and  the  lots  on  Central  avenue  and  those 
facing  the  plaza  on  all  sides  were  early  pre- 
empted. The  colonists  had  faith  that  a  real 
city  would  rise  on  the  chosen  site.  When  the 


8o  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

demand  for  town  lots  had  been  satisfied,  the 
committee  began  at  once  to  give  out  the  plan- 
tation land.  The  choice  was  necessarily  re- 
stricted to  about  eight  or  ten  thousand  acres 
to  the  west,  southwest,  and  northwest  of  the 
town,  which  was  all  that  had  been  surveyed 
up  to  that  time.  When  this  condition  was 
discovered  by  the  colonists,  the  unsurveyed 
land  to  the  north,  south,  and  east  began,  natu- 
rally enough,  to  appear  far  more  desirable  in 
the  eyes  of  the  investors  than  that  which  had 
been  surveyed  to  the  westward,  and  some 
refused  to  make  a  selection  at  all,  preferring 
delay  to  a  restricted  choice.  The  great  ma- 
jority, however,  mindful  that  they  were  priv- 
ileged to  change  if  the  land  was  not  satisfac- 
tory, went  ahead  and  made  their  selections. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  surveyed  tract  to  the 
westward  was  probably  as  good  as  any,  all  of 
the  land  held  by  the  company  being  rich  and 
highly  productive. 

The  first  man  to  choose  his  plantation  was 
Dr.  W.  P.  Peirce  of  Hoopeston,  111.,  who,  it 
so  chanced,  was  chairman  of  the  committee 
on  allotment.  Dr.  Peirce's  contract  was  No. 
2,  and  it  was  dated  in  January,  1899.  But 
few  contracts  were  made  before  April  of  that 
year.  Contract  No.  i  was  not  on  the  ground, 


The  Allotment  of  the  Land.        81 

and  no  one  present  knew  who  was  the  holder. 
The  allotment  was  well  conducted,  and  went 
on  quite  rapidly.  It  was  eagerly  watched  by 
a  large  group  of  interested  spectators,  impa- 
tiently awaiting  their  turn.  Some  tried  to 
extract  inside  information  from  the  surveyors, 
who  were  supposed  to  know  the  relative  value 
of  every  square  foot  of  the  land,  but  the  ma- 
jority either  made  their  choice  blindly,  with 
knowledge  of  nothing  save  the  proximity  of 
the  tract  to  the  town,  or  trusted  to  the  meagre 
information  they  had  acquired  regarding  the 
character  of  the  land  in  different  localities 
during  their  tramps  in  the  few  days  since  their 
arrival. 

It  was  a  strange  scene.  Men  of  all  ages 
and  occupations,  coming  from  nearly  every 
one  of  the  United  States,  and  several  other 
countries,  strangers  until  a  few  days  before, 
were  crowded  together  in  a  large  tent,  each 
anxious  to  do  the  best  possible  for  himself,  and 
yet  in  few  instances  discourteous  to  his  neigh- 
bor. It  was  a  good-natured,  well-behaved 
crowd,  and  there  was  no  friction  in  the  pro- 
ceedings. The  colonists  were  satisfied  that 
the  plan  of  allotment  was  a  fair  one  ;  there 
was  no  complaint  about  anything  except  the 
restricted  choice.  Monday  night  saw  the 
6 


ROBERT  C.  BEAUSEJOUR. 
(One  of  the  Early  Colonists.) 


The  Allotment  of  the  Land.        83 

allotment  well  advanced,  and  Tuesday  it  was 
finished.  Everybody  then  on  the  ground  who 
wished  to  make  a  selection  for  himself  or 
those  whom  he  represented  had  been  accom- 
modated, and  the  committee's  duties  were  at 
an  end.  Nearly  seven  thousand  acres  of 
plantation  land  had  been  allotted. 

As  soon  as  they  had  selected  their  land  from 
the  map  the  colonists  scurried  out  into  the 
surrounding  country  to  find  it.  The  woods 
were  full  of  men  hunting  their  plantations. 
It  was  no  easy  matter  to  find  them,  since  there 
was  nothing  to  go  by  but  the  numbered  stakes 
of  the  surveyors.  These  were  anything  but 
plain  guides  to  the  uninitiated,  and  even  the 
more  understanding  were  sometimes  baffled 
by  reason  of  indistinct  figures  or  missing 
stakes.  The  result  was  that  many  viewed 
other  people's  land  for  their  own,  while  some, 
conscious  of  their  helplessness,  gave  up  the 
search  for  the  time  being.  The  majority, 
however,  found  their  land  with  no  more  diffi- 
culty than  was  inevitable  in  a  long  tramp 
through  the  rough  and  muddy  paths  of  a  jun- 
gle. The  mosquitoes  kept  us  company,  and 
the  parrots  scolded  us  from  overhead,  but 
there  were  no  wild  beasts  or  venomous 
snakes  to  be  dreaded.  Probably  there  are  no 


84  -Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

tropical  forests  in  the  world  so  safe  as  those 
of  Cuba  ;  one  may  sleep  in  them  night  after 
night  without  fear  of  death  or  disease.  This 
is  true,  at  least,  of  the  country  within  a  radius 
of  forty  miles  from  La  Gloria,  as  I  can  testify 
from  personal  experience  and  observation. 

In  most  cases  the  colonists  were  pleased 
with  their  land  when  they  found  it,  and  the 
changes  were  comparatively  few.  A  little  of 
the  lowest  land  was  more  or  less  under  water, 
but  even  this  was  rarely  given  up,  the  holders 
discovering  that  it  was  very  rich,  and  realizing 
that  it  would  be  all  right  in  the  dry  season, 
and  that  it  could  be  drained  for  the  wet. 
Some  experienced  men  from  Florida  showed 
a  decided  preference  for  this  land,  and  later 
it  developed  that  their  judgment  was  good. 
This  lowest  land  was  of  black  soil ;  that 
slightly  higher  was  apt  to  be  yellow,  and  the 
highest  red  or  chocolate.  All  these  different 
colored  soils  were  embraced  in  the  allotment 
which  had  been  made,  and  they  all  repre- 
sented good  land.  The  colonists  could  never 
agree  as  to  which  was  the  best.  Undoubtedly 
some  were  superior  for  certain  purposes  to 
others,  but  all  appeared  to  be  fertile  and  gave 
promise  of  being  very  productive.  The  black 
and  yellow  soils  were  almost  entirely  free 


The  Allotment  of  the  Land.        85 

from  stone,  while  the  red  and  chocolate  had 
some,  but  seldom  enough  to  do  any  harm. 
The  colonists  set  to  work  with  energy  clear- 
ing their  town  lots,  and  a  few  began  work  at 
once  on  their  plantations.  The  colony  was 
soon  a  busy  hive  of  industry. 


CHAPTER   VJ. 
THE  SUGAR  RIOT. 

AFTER  the  middle  of  January  and  the  be- 
ginning of  the  allotment  of  the  land,  the 
population  of  La  Gloria  began  to  "  pick  up" 
somewhat.  Colonists  who  had  been-  linger- 
ing at  Nuevitas,  and  some  new  ones  who  had 
come  down  from  the  States  by  the  Munson 
line,  would  straggle  in  from  time  to  time. 
People  were  coming  and  going  almost  every 
day,  but  the  balance  was  in  favor  of  the  col- 
ony and  the  population  slowly  but  surely 
increased.  Among  the  new  arrivals  were 
quite  a  number  of  women  and  children. 
About  January  20  the  advance  guard  of  the 
colonists  who  had  come  on  the  second  excur- 
sion of  the  Yarmouth  made  its  appearance. 
On  this  trip  the  Yarmouth  brought  about 
sixty  passengers,  the  majority  of  whom  finally 
got  up  to  La  Gloria.  More  would  have  come 
if  Nuevitas  at  that  time  had  not  been  a  hotbed 
of  misrepresentation  regarding  conditions  in 
the  new  colony.  All  the  unfavorable  features 
were  grossly  and  ridiculously  exaggerated, 


The  Sugar  Riot.  87 

while  stories  of  starvation,  sickness,  and 
death  were  poured  into  the  ears  of  new 
arrivals  until  many  an  intending  colonist  he- 
came  convinced  that  it  would  be  taking  his 
life  in  his  hand  for  him  to  make  even  the 
briefest  visit  to  La  Gloria.  Such  is  the  ten- 
dency of  human  nature  to  exaggerate,  and  to 
build  a  big  sensation  out  of  a  small  nucleus. 
People  who  had  never  seen  La  Gloria  were 
the  ones  whose  representations  seemed  to  be 
most  credited  in  the  States  and  by  the  new 
arrivals  therefrom.  I  saw  a  letter  received 
by  one  of  the  company's  officials  at  La  Gloria 
from  a  woman  in  Asbury  Park,  N.  J.,  who 
was  nearly  crazed  by  anxiety  for  her  young- 
est son,  who  was  then  in  the  colony.  She 
had  heard  frequently  from  her  oldest  son, 
who  had  been  in  La  Gloria  with  the  survey 
corps  for  several  months,  and  he  had  always 
written  very  favorably  of  the  place,  so  she 
said,  but  she  had  lately  seen  an  Asbury  Park 
man  who  had  returned  from  Nuevitas  and  he 
had  told  a  terrible  story  of  suffering  and 
danger  in  the  colony.  The  woman's  letter 
showed  clearly  that  she  discredited  the  ac- 
counts of  her  son  and  accepted  those  of  the 
man  who  had  brought  back  a  harrowing  tale. 
Why  she  credited  the  story  of  a  man  who 


- 


The  Sugar  Riot.  89 

never  got  further  than  Nuevitas  in  preference 
to  that  of  her  own  son,  who  had  been  at  La 
Gloria  for  months,  I  never  could  understand, 
especially  as  the  latter  was  an  intelligent  and 
apparently  perfectly  reliable  young  man. 
Doubtless  mortals  are  predisposed  to  believe 
the  worst.  I  looked  up  the  woman's  young- 
est son,  and  found  him  well  and  happy,  and 
ready  to  join  with  his  brother  in  speaking 
favorably  of  La  Gloria. 

Meanwhile,  we  were  living  contentedly  in 
La  Gloria,  enjoying  excellent  health  and  suf- 
fering no  serious  discomfort,  and  laughing  in 
uproarious  glee  over  the  sensational  articles 
which  appeared  in  many  of  the  newspapers 
of  the  States.  With  no  little  surprise  we 
learned  from  the  great  newspapers  of  the 
United  States  that  we  were  "marooned  in  a 
Cuban  swamp,"  suffering  from  "  malaria  and 
starvation,"  and  "dying  of  yellow  fever  and 
smallpox."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  at  that  time 
there  had  not  been  a  single  death  or  one  case 
of  serious  sickness.  The  health  of  the  colo- 
nists remained  good  through  the  winter,  the 
spring,  and  even  the  following  summer. 

Indeed,  the  colonists  had  but  few  griev- 
ances, so  few  that  they  would  sometimes 
manufacture  them  out  of  trifles.  Of  such  was 


90  Pioneering  in   Cuba. 

the  "sugar  riot"  with  its  laughable  and  har- 
monious ending.  One  day  in  the  latter  part 
of  January,  when  the  arrival  of  provisions 
was  barely  keeping  pace  with  the  arrival  of 
colonists,  a  small  invoice  of  sugar  was 
brought  into  La  Gloria  over  the  bad  road 
from  the  port.  Scarcely  had  it  been  un- 
loaded at  the  commissary  when  the  head  of 
the  engineer  corps  took  possession  of  about 
half  of  it  for  the  surveyors  and  the  boarders 
at  their  table,  and  gave  orders  that  the  other 
half  should  be  turned  over  to  the  Cuban 
workmen  of  the  company.  The  carrying  out 
of  this  order  aroused  great  indignation  among 
the  colonists  who  were  boarding  themselves 
and  had  run  out  of  sugar,  as  most  of  them 
had.  This  action  of  the  amateur  "  sugar 
trust  "  caused  certain  of  the  colonists  to  sour, 
so  to  speak,  on  all  of  the  officers  and  chief 
employes  of  the  company,  for  the  time  being, 
at  least,  and  mutterings,  "  not  loud  but  deep,'* 
were  heard  all  about  the  camp.  Not  that 
there  was  danger  of  a  sanguinary  conflict, 
but  a  war  of  words  seemed  imminent.  The 
"  era  of  good  feeling  '*  was  threatened. 

A  day  or  two  later,  on  the  evening  of 
Saturday,  January  27.,  a  meeting  of  the  colo- 
nists was  held  preparatory  to  the  organization 


The  Sugar  Riot.  91 

of  a  pioneer  association,  and  it  was  arranged 
among  some  of  the  leading  spirits  in  the 
sugar  agitation  that  at  the  close  of  this  session 
the  saccharine  grievance  should  be  publicly 
aired.  The  gathering  was  held  around  a 
camp-fire  in  the  open  air,  in  front  of  head- 
quarters tent.  The  regularly  called  meeting 
adjourned  early,  with  a  feeling  of  excited 
expectancy  in  the  air.  Something  was  about 
to  happen.  The  officers  of  the  company  on 
the  ground,  it  was  understood,  were  to  be 
raked  over  the  coals  for  favoring  the  Cubans 
and  thus  perpetrating  an  outrage  on  the  colo- 
nists. The  colonists  whose  tempers  had  been 
kept  sweet  by  a  sufficiency  of  sugar  lingered 
around  in  the  pleasant  anticipation  of  witness- 
ing an  opera  bouffe. 

But  it  was  the  unexpected  that  happened. 
Just  as  the  sugar  orators  were  preparing 
to  orate,  a  man  with  muddy  boots  pushed 
through  the  crowd  and  entered  headquarters 
tent.  A  moment  later  the  stalwart  form  of 
Colonel  Maginniss  emerged  from  the  tent, 
and  in  his  hand  he  bore  a  slip  of  paper.  It 
was  a  cablegram  from  New  York,  which  had 
just  been  brought  in  from  Nuevitas,  announc- 
ing the  election  of  General  Van  der  Voort  as 
president  of  the  Cuban  Land  and  Steamship 


92  Pioneering  in   Cuba. 


Company.  When  the  dispatch  had  been 
read  to  the  crowd,  there  was  silence  for  an 
instant,  and  then  the  air  was  rent  with  cheers. 
There  had  never  been  any  question  about 
General  Van  der  Voort's  popularity.  The 
colonists  had  full  faith  in  his  honesty  and 
devotion  to  the  colony,  and  hence  looked 
upon  his  election  to  the  presidency  of  the 
company  as  the  best  possible  security  lor  the 
success  of  the  enterprise.  They  had  been 
•distrustful  of  the  management  of  the  com- 
pany ;  the  choice  for  the  new  president  in- 
spired them  with  renewed  hope  and  confi- 
dence. It  was  the  unanimous  opinion  that  it 
was  the  best  thing  that  could  have  happened. 
He  was  the  right  man  in  the  right  place  ;  he 
was  in  La  Gloria  to  stay,  and  reckoned  him- 
self as  a  colonist  among  them. 

The  sugar  agitators  forgot  that  their  coffee 
had  not  been  sweetened  for  forty-eight  hours, 
and  joined  heartily  in  the  cheering.  In  fact, 
all  who  had  "come  to  scoff  remained  to 
pray,"  so  to  speak.  It  was  voted  to  send  a 
cablegram  to  the  New  York  office  announc- 
ing the  deep  satisfaction  of  the  colonists  in 
the  choice  made  for  president.  General 
Van  der  Voort  responded  to  calls  and  made 
an  excellent  speech. 


The  Sugar  Riot.  93 

A  little  later  in  the  evening  there  was  a 
big  demonstration  in  honor  of  the  significant 
event.  More  than  anything  else  it  resem- 
bled a  Fourth  of  July  celebration.  Bonfires 
were  lighted  and  salutes  fired,  and  the  air 
of  La  Gloria  resounded  with  cheers.  The 
Cubans  came  over  from  their  camp,  and  after 
the  Americans  had  got  through,  started  in 
for  a  celebration  of  their  own.  This  was 
partly  because  of  their  fondness  for  General 
Van  der  Voort  and  partly  on  account  of  their 
childish  love  of  noise  and  display.  The  colo- 
nists became  convinced  that  night  that  if  the 
Cubans  ever  become  American  citizens  they 
will  be  equal  to  all  of  the  Fourth  of  July 
requirements.  The  noise  they  made  double 
discounted  that  made  by  the  colonists.  They 
cheered  and  shouted  and  fired  salutes  by  the 
hundred.  They  marched  up  and  down  the 
main  street,  singing  and  laughing  and  blow- 
ing conch  shells.  They  freed  Cuba  over 
again,  and  had  a  rattling  good  time  in  doing 
it.  It  seemed  as  if  the  racket  would  never 
end,  but  about  midnight  they  went  jabbering 
back  to  their  camp.  It  was  the  noisiest  night 
in  the  history  of  La  Gloria.  But  the  "  sugar 
riot"  was  averted,  and  never  took  place. 


CHAPTER   VII. 
ADVENTURES  AND  MISADVENTURES. 

AMONG  the  dozen  women  in  the  camp, 
the  most  striking  figure  was  Mrs.  Moller,  a 
Danish  widow,  who  came  from  one  of  the 
states,  Pennsylvania,  I  believe.  I  cannot 
say  exactly  when  she  reached  La  Gloria, 
but  she  was  one  of  the  earliest  of  her  sex  to 
arrive,  and  achieved  the  distinction  of  build- 
ing the  first  house  in  the  "  city."  Speaking 
of  sex,  it  was  not  easy  to  determine  that  of 
Mrs.  Moller  upon  a  casual  acquaintance. 
Slight  of  figure,  with  bronzed  face  and  close- 
cut  hair,  she  wore  a  boy's  cap,  blouse,  trous- 
ers, a  very  short  skirt,  and  rubber  boots, 
while  her  belt  fairly  bristled  with  revolvers 
and  knives.  She  was  a  quiet,  imperturbable 
person,  however,  and  it  was  difficult  to  get 
her  to  relate  her  adventures,  which  had  been 
somewhat  extraordinary. 

She  first  came  into  La  Gloria  from  Palota, 
where  she  landed  from  a  boat  with  no  other 
company  than  her  trunk.  There  was  not  a 
living  person  at  or  near  Palota,  so,  deserting 


Adventures  and  Misadventures.      95 

her  baggage,  she  started  out  afoot  and  alone, 
and  attempted  to  make  her  way  along  the 
muddy  and  difficult  trail  nine  miles  to  La 
Gloria.  It  was  a  hard  road  to  travel,  with 
scarcely  a  habitation  along  the  way.  Late 
in  the  afternoon  she  reached  an  inhabited 
shack,  and  the  Cubans  invited  her  to  spend 
the  night.  Although  weary,  she  declined 
the  invitation,  and  pressed  on.  Darkness 
soon  overtook  her,  but  still  she  kept  on 
through  the  dense  woods.  The  trail  was 
exceedingly  rough,  and  she  stumbled  along 
among  stumps,  roots,  and  muddy  gullies. 
Every  few  steps  she  fell  down,  and  finally 
becoming  exhausted,  she  was  compelled  to 
spend  the  night  in  the  heart  of  the  forest. 
She  had  no  shelter  whatever,  and  no  means 
of  making  a  fire.  She  sat  in  the  woods  all 
night,  not  being  able  to  go  to  sleep,  her 
only  company  being  the  mosquitoes.  In  the 
morning  she  found  she  had  lost  her  way,  but 
at  last  struck  a  Cuban  trail,  and  was  over- 
taken by  a  native  horseman.  He  kindlv 
gave  her  a  place  in  front  of  him  on  his  pony, 
and  thus  she  entered  the  youthful  city  of  La 
Gloria. 

Nor  was  this  Mrs.  Moller's  last  adventure. 
She  had  an  extraordinary  faculty  for  getting 


96  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

into  trouble.  Her  trunk,  which  she  had  aban- 
doned at  Palota,  was  rifled  by  some  one, 
probably  a  wandering  Cuban,  and  she  spent 
much  time  in  traveling  about  the  country 
seeking  to  get  the  authorities  to  hunt  up  the 
offender  and  recover  the  stolen  goods.  On 
one  occasion  she  started  in  the  early  evening 
to  walk  into  La  Gloria  from  the  port.  When 
she  had  got  about  half  way  darkness  came  on 
and  she  lost  the  indistinct  trail  across  the 
savanna.  Not  daring  to  go  further,  she 
roosted  in  a  tree  all  night.  Her  idea  in  tak- 
ing to  the  tree  was  that  the  mosquitoes  would 
be  less  numerous  at  such  an  elevation,  but 
she  did  not  escape  them  altogether.  Nothing 
serious  happened  and  she  turned  up  in  camp 
all  right  the  next  morning.  Mrs.  Moller  had 
no  better  luck  when  she  rode  than  when  she 
walked.  At  one  time,  while  driving  from  Las 
Minas  to  Nuevitas  in  a  wagon  with  another 
colonist,  the  team  went  over  an  embankment 
in  the  darkness  and  was  so  badly  damaged 
that  she  and  her  companion  were  obliged  to 
walk  into  Nuevitas,  twelve  or  fifteen  miles 
distant,  along  the  railroad  track.  The  jour- 
ney was  neither  easy  nor  pleasant. 

But  Mrs.  Moller  had  both  pluck  and  enter- 
prise.    She  it  was  who  built  the  first  house  in 


Adventures  and  Misadventures.      97 

La  Gloria,  a  log  cabin  far  up  in  the  woods  on 
Central  avenue.  It  was  put  up  in  the  latter 
part  of  January.  She  employed  an  American 
and  a  Cuban  to  construct  it,  and  had  it  cov- 
ered with  a  canvas  roof.  She  personally 


FIRST  HOUSE  IN  LA  GLORIA. 

supervised  the  erection  of  the  house,  and 
when  it  was  done  planted  sunflowers,  banana 
trees,  pineapples,  etc.,  around  it.  She  lived 
here  alone  for  some  time  before  she  had  any 
near  neighbors.  Mrs.  Moller  also  enjoyed 

7 


98  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

the  distinction  of  owning  the  first  cow,  the 
first  calf,  and  the  first  goat  in  La  Gloria.  As 
these  animals  roamed  at  large  much  of  the 
time  and  were  noisy,  disorderly  beasts,  they 
were  anything  but  popular  in  the  colony. 
They  were  so  destructive  to  planted  things, 
that  the  threats  to  plant  the  cow  and  her 
unhappy  offspring  were  numerous  and  oft- 
repeated,  and  the  subject  was  discussed  in 
more  than  one  meeting  of  the  Pioneer  Associa- 
tion. It  was  said  that  Mrs.  Moller  had  come 
to  La  Gloria  with  the  idea  of  starting  a  dairy 
business,  and  it  was  further  reported  that  she 
had  taken  the  first  prize  for  dairy  butter  at 
the  World's  Fair  in  Chicago.  But  the  dairy 
•did  not  materialize,  and  La  Gloria  long  went 
butterless. . 

It  was  a  standing  wonder  with  us  that  the 
Rural  Guards  did  not  disarm  Mrs.  Moller. 
They  frequently  met  her  as  she  traveled 
about  the  country,  and  must  have  seen  that 
she  carried  deadly  weapons.  They  did  not 
relieve  her  of  them,  however,  but  the  Ameri- 
can authorities  at  La  Gloria  finally  forbade 
her  to  wear  her  revolvers  about  the  camp. 
It  must  not  be  thought  that  Mrs.  Moller 
always  dressed  as  I  have  described  her.  On 
state  occasions,  such  as  Sunday  services  and 


Adventures  and  Misadventures.      99 

the  regular  Saturday  night  meetings  of  the 
Pioneer  Association,  she  doffed  her  blue  blouse 
and  rubber  boots,  and  came  out  with  a  jacket 
and  the  most  immaculate  starched  and  stiff' 
bloomers,  gorgeous' in  light  and  bright  colors. 
At  such  times  she  was  a  wonder  to  behold. 
Mrs.  Moller  spoke  broken  English,  and  was 
not  greatly  given  to  talking  except  when  she 
had  business  on  hand. 

But  it  Mrs.  Moller  was  the  most  striking 
figure  in  camp,  the  most  ubiquitous  and  irre- 
pressible person  was  Mrs.  Horn  of  South 
Bend,  Indiana.  She  was  one  of  the  earliest 
arrivals  in  La  Gloria,  coming  in  with  two 
sons  and  a  daughter,  but  without  her  hus- 
band. Mrs.  Horn  was  a  loud-voiced,  good- 
natured  woman,  who  would  have  tipped  the 
scales  at  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds, 
provided  there  had  been  any  scales  in  La 
Gloria  to  be  tipped.  She  reached  La  Gloria 
before  the  Yarmouth  colonists,  but  how  is 
something  of  a  mystery.  It  is  known,  how- 
ever, that  she  waded  in  through  miles  of  mud 
and  water,  and  was  nothing  daunted  by  the 
experience.  Never  for  a  moment  did  she 
think  of  turning  backhand  when  she  had 
pitched  her  tent,  she  announced  in  a  high, 
shrill  voice  that  penetrated  the  entire  camp, 


ioo  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

that  she  was  in  the  colony  to  stay.  She  had 
lived  in  South  Bend,  Ind.,  and  thought  she 
could  stand  anything  that  might  come  to  her 
in  La  Gloria. 

Mrs.  Horn  claimed  to  be  able  to  do  any- 
thing and  go  anywhere  that  a  man  could,  and 
no  one  was  inclined  to  dispute  the  assertion. 
She  had  the  temperament  which  never  gets 
"  rattled,"  and  when  she  woke  up  one  night 
and  found  a  brook  four  inches  deep  and  a  foot 
wide  running  through  her  tent  she  was  not  in 
the  least  disconcerted.  In  the  morning  she 
used  it  to  wash  her  dishes  in.  She  continued 
to  make  use  of  it  until  it  dried  up  a  day  or 
two  later.  One  of  Mrs.  Horn's  distinctions 
was  that  she  was  the  first  woman  to  take  a 
sea  bath  at  Port  La  Gloria,  walking  the  round 
trip  of  eight  miles  to  do  so.  She  was  both  a 
good  walker  and  a  good  swimmer.  She  was 
delighted  with  La  Gloria  and  Cuba.  Her 
sons  were  nearly  man-grown,  and  her  daugh- 
ter was  about  twelve  years  of  age.  It  was 
one  of  the  diversions  of  the  camp  to  hear 
Mrs.  Horn  call  Edna  at  a  distance  of  a  quar- 
ter of  a  mile  or  more.  Mrs.  Horn  may  un- 
hesitatingly be  set  down  as  a  good  colonist. 
Though  at  times  too  voluble,  perhaps,  she  was 
energetic,  patient,  kind-hearted,  and  generous. 


Adventures  and  Misadventures.   101 

When  the  colonists  who  came  on  the  Tar- 
mouth  first  arrived  in  La  Gloria  many  of  them 
were  eager  for  hunting  and  fishing,  but  the 
sport  of  hunting  wild  hogs  very  soon  received 
a  setback.  An  Englishman  by  the  name  of 
Curtis  and  two  or  three  others  went  out  to 
hunt  for  big  game.  After  a  rough  and  weary 
tramp  of  many  miles,  they  suddenly  came  in 
sight  of  a  whole  drove  of  hogs.  They  had 
traveled  so  far  without  seeing  any  game, 
that  they  could  scarcely  believe  their  eyes, 
but  they  recovered  themselves  and  blazed 
away.  The  result  was  that  they  trudged 
into  camp  some  hours  later  triumphantly 
shouldering  the  carcasses  of  three  young 
pigs.  The  triumph  of  the  hunters  was  short- 
lived, however.  The  next  morning  an  in- 
dignant Cuban  rode  into  camp  with  fire  in  his 
eye  and  a  keen  edge  on  his  machete.  He 
was  in  search  of  the  "Americanos"  who 
shot  his  pigs.  He  soon  found  them  and 
could  not  be  mollified  until  he  was  paid 
eight  dollars  in  good  American  money. 
The  next  day  the  same  Cuban  rode  into 
camp  with  a  dead  pig  on  his  horse  in  front 
of  him.  This  was  larger  than  the  others, 
and  the  man  wanted  seventeen  dollars  for  it. 
Curtis,  et  «/.,  did  not  know  whether  they 


IO2  Pioneering  in   Cuba. 

shot  the  animal  or  not,  but  they  paid  the 
"  hombre  "  twelve  dollars.  The  following 
day  the  Cuban  again  appeared  bringing 
another  deceased  porker.  This  was  a  full 
grown  hog,  and  its  owner  fixed  its  value  at 
twenty  dollars.  Again  he  got  his  money, 
and  the  carcass  as  well.  How  much  longer 
the  Cuban  would  have  continued  to  bring  in 
dead  pigs,  had  he  not  been  made  to  under- 
stand that  he  would  get  no  more  money, 
cannot  be  stated.  To  this  day,  Curtis  and 
his  friends  do  not  know  whether  they  actually 
killed  all  those  pigs.  What  they  are  sure  of 
is  that  there  is  small  difference  in  the  appear- 
ance of  wild  hogs  and  those  which  the 
Cubans  domesticate.  And  this  is  why  the 
hunting  of  wild  hogs  became  an  unpopular 
sport  in  La  Gloria. 

The  colony  had  its  mild  excitements  now 
and  again.  One  evening  there  was  long 
continued  firing  of  guns  and  blowing  of 
conch  shells  in  that  corner  of  the  camp 
where  the  surveyors  had  their  tents.  Inquir- 
ing the  cause,  we  learned  that  three  sur- 
veyors were  lost  in  the  woods  and  that  the 
noise  was  being  made  to  inform  them  of  the 
location  of  the  camp.  The  men,  who  had 
come  to  Cuba  as  colonists,  had  separated 


Adventures  and  Misadventures.    103 

from  the  surveying  party  just  before  dark 
and  attempted  to  make  a  short  cut  back  to 
the  camp.  They  had  been  at  work  in  a  low, 
wet  section  two  or  three  miles  northwest  of 
the  town,  and  their  progress  homeward  was 
necessarily  slow.  They  had  not  proceeded 
far  when  it  became  perfectly  dark  and  it  was 
borne  in  upon  them  that  "  cutting  across 
lots"  in  a  Cuban  forest  was  quite  a  different 
matter  from  doing  it  in  some  of  the  States. 
They  were  obliged  to  suspend  travel  and 
hold  up  for  the  night.  Although  they  could 
faintly  hear  the  reports  of  the  guns  in  the 
camp  they  were  unable  to  make  their  way  in 
through  the  thick  woods.  The  men  were 
without  food  or  anything  for  shelter.  Having 
an  axe  with  them,  they  chopped  down  a  tree, 
to  keep  them  from  the  wet  ground,  and  at- 
tempted to  sleep  upon  its  branches.  The 
hard  bed  and  the  numerous  mosquitoes  were 
not  conducive  to  sleep,  but  the  tired  fellows 
finally  succumbed.  When  they  awoke  in 
the  morning,  one  of  them  found  that  he  had 
slipped  down  and  was  lying  with  his  legs  in 
the  water.  Not  long  after  daylight  they 
came  into  carnp  wet,  tired,  and  hungry.  It 
was  no  uncommon  thing  for  surveyors  to  get 
lost,  but  nothing  serious  ever  resulted. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 
THE  CUBANS. 

I  AM  often  asked,  "  How  did  you  get 
along  with  the  Cubans  ? "  very  much  as  in- 
quiry might  be  made  as  to  how  we  got  along 
with  the  Apaches,  or  with  the  Modocs  ;  and 
one  man  said,  decidedly,  "  I  think  I  might  like 
Cuba,  but  I  could  never  stand  those  Cubans." 
He  had  never  seen  a  Cuban,  I  believe. 

We  got  along  with  the  Cubans  very  well 
indeed,  much  better  than  with  some  of  our 
neighbors  in  the  States.  Judging  from  our 
experience  with  the  inhabitants  of  the  pro- 
vince of  Puerto  Principe,  there  are  no  better 
people  on  the  face  of  the  earth  to  "  get  along 
with"  than  the  Cubans.  We  found  them, 
almost  without  exception,  courteous,  social, 
kind,  hospitable,  and  honest.  Indeed,  it 
sometimes  seemed  as  if  there  was  nothing 
they  would  not  do  for  us  that  lay  within  their 
power.  They  appeared  to  appreciate  kind 
and  fair  treatment,  and  to  be  eager  to  return 
the  same  to  us.  Those  we  came  in  contact 
with  were  mainly  of  the  humbler  classes, 


The  Cubans.  105 


but  we  saw  nothing  to  indicate  that  those 
higher  in  the  social  scale  were  less  friendly 
and  considerate.  The  Cubans  we  met 
seemed  to  like  the  Americans,  and  the  col- 
onists certainly  reciprocated  the  feeling. 
After  a  residence  of  nearly  a  year  among 
them,  Hon.  Peter  E.  Park  emphatically 
declared  that  there  was  as  little  meanness  in 
the  Cubans  as  in  any  class  of  people  he  had 
ever  fallen  in  with,  and  many  other  Ameri- 
cans in  La  Gloria  echoed  this  sentiment. 

I  can  easily  conceive  that  under  abuse  the 
Cubans  would  exhibit  some  very  disagreeable 
and  dangerous  qualities,  but  what  people  of 
spirit  does  not  under  such  circumstances? 
Self-control  is  not  a  marked  characteristic  of 
the  Cuban,  and  he  is  apt  to  revenge  himself 
upon  his  enemy  in  any  way  he  can  at  the 
earliest  opportunity.  But  with  kind  and  just 
treatment,  he  is  your  friend,  and  very  good 
friends  we  found  these  Cubans — we  of  the 
colony  at  La  Gloria.  Among  themselves  they 
are  an  easy-going,  good-natured,  talkative 
people,  and  they  display  these  same  qualities 
to  foreigners  who  approach  them  rightly. 
Rude  they  never  are,  but  they  sometimes  show 
a  childish  sullenness  when  offended.  Strong 
in  their  likes  and  dislikes,  they  often  exhibit 


io6  Pioneering-  in   Cuba. 

no  little  devotion  to  those  whom  they  esteem 
or  respect,  and  I  believe  them  to  be  quite  as 
reliable  and  trustworthy  as  the  average  among 
the  inhabitants  of  the  tropics.  I  have  heard 
it  said  that  the  Cubans  of  some  of  the  other 
provinces  do  not  compare  favorably  with  those 
of  Puerto  Principe,  which  may  be  true  ;  yet  I 
cannot  help  thinking  that  the  race  as  a  whole 
has  been  much  maligned.  Under  a  strong, 
just  government  I  believe  they  would  prove 
to  be  excellent  citizens,  but  I  do  not  expect 
that  they  will  soon  develop  much  administra- 
tive ability. 

Some  writers  and  travelers  have  done  the 
Cubans  justice,  but  many  obviously  have  not. 
The  soldiers  of  the  United  States  army  have 
an  unconcealed  dislike  for  them,  which  the 
Cubans,  naturally  enough,  ardently  recipro- 
cate. Perhaps  the  soldiers  expect  too  much 
homage  from  a  people  upon  whom  they  feel 
they  conferred  the  priceless  boon  of  liberty. 
At  all  events,  in  many  cases  where  there  has 
been  bad  blood  between  the  two,  it  is  easy  to 
believe  that  the  soldiers  were  the  most  to 
blame,  for  the  Cubans  as  we  met  them  were 
anything  but  aggressive.  Many  a  Yankee 
could  take  lessons  of  them  in  the  noble  art  of 
minding  one's  own  business. 


The  Cubans.  107 

So  much  for  the  character  of  the  Cubans. 
Less  can  be  said  for  their  style  of  living,  which 
in  the  rural  districts  and  some  parts  of  the 
cities  is  primitive  to  the  verge  of  squalor.  In 
the  country  around  La  Gloria  it  was  no  un- 
common thing  to  find  a  Cuban  who  owned 
hundreds  or  thousands  of  acres  of  land — most 
of  it  uncultivated,  to  be  sure — living  in  a  small,, 
palm-thatched  hut  with  no  other  floor  than  the 
hard  red  soil.  The  house  would  be  furnished 
in  the  scantiest  way,  a  rude  wooden  table,  a 
few  chairs,  and  perhaps  a  rough  bench  or  two. 
Often  there  would  be  no  beds  other  than  ham- 
mocks, no  stoves,  and  sometimes  not  even  a 
fireplace  of  any  description.  The  meals,  such 
as  they  were,  would  be  cooked  in  the  open 
front  of  the  shack  over  a  fire  usually  built  on 
the  ground.  Occasionally  the  enclosed  room 
which  formed  the  rear  of  the  shack  would 
have  an  uneven  board  floor,  but  there  were 
never  any  carpets  or  rugs,  or  even  a  matting 
of  any  sort.  Of  course  there  was  no  paint  or 
varnish,  and  very  little  color  about  the  place 
save  the  brown  of  the  dry  thatch  on  the  roof 
and  the  brick-red  grime  from  the  soil  which 
colored,  or  discolored,  everything  it  came  in 
contact  with  like  a  pigment.  This  red  stain 
was  astonishingly  in  evidence  everywhere. 


io8  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

It  was  to  be  seen  upon  the  poles  which  sup- 
ported the  hut,  on  all  of  the  furniture,  upon 
the  clothing  of  the  inmates,  and  even  upon 
their  persons.  It  looked  like  red  paint,  and 
evidently  was  about  as  hard  to  get  off.  The 
huge  wheels  of  the  bullock  carts  seemed  to  be 
painted  with  it,  and  the  mahogany  and  cedar 
logs  hauled  out  of  the  forest  took  on  the  color. 
In  a  walking  trip  to  the  city  of  Puerto  Prin- 
cipe I  passed  through  a  region  about  twenty 
miles  from  La  Gloria  where  nearly  all  the 
trees  along  the  road  were  colored  as  evenly 
for  about  two  feet  from  the  ground  as  if  their 
trunks  had  been  carefully  painted  red.  My 
companions  and  I  pondered  over  this  matter 
for  some  time  and  finally  arrived  at  the  opinion 
that  wild  hogs,  or  possibly  a  large  drove  of 
domesticated  swine,  had  rolled  in  the  red  dust 
of  the  highway  and  then  rubbed  up  against 
the  neighboring  trees.  They  were  colored 
to  about  the  height  of  a  hog's  back.  This 
seemed  to  be  the  only  reasonable  explanation, 
and  is  undoubtedly  the  true  one.  This  region 
was  close  to  the  Cubitas  mountains,  where  the 
Cuban  insurgents  long  had  their  capital  and 
kept  their  cattle  to  supply  the  army  in  the  field  ; 
it  may  be  that  they  had  also  large  droves  of 
hogs  which  roamed  through  the  near-by  coun- 
try. 


The  Cubans.  109 


The  Cuban  homes  as  I  found  them  in  the 
rural  districts  around  La  Gloria  were  not 
ornamented  with  books  and  pictures.  Some- 
times, to  be  sure,  there  would  be  a  few  litho- 
graphs tacked  up,  and  I  had  reason  to  believe 
that  the  houses  were  not  wholly  destitute  of 
books,  but  they  were  never  in  evidence.  The 
things  that  were  always  in  evidence  were 
children,  chickens,  and  dogs,  and  often  pigs 
and  goats.  There  was  a  democracy  about  the 
domestic  economy  of  the  household  that  must 
have  been  highly  flattering  to  the  chickens, 
dogs,  pigs,  etc.  They  always  had  all  the 
rights  and  privileges  that  the  children  or  even 
the  adults  had.  I  have  seen  a  two-year-old 
child  and  a  cat  eating  contentedly  out  of  the 
same  dish. 

But  if  the  children  were  always  in  evidence, 
their  clothing  oftentimes  was  not.  Nothing  is 
more  common  in  Cuba  than  to  see  young  chil- 
dren in  unabashed  nakedness.  Their  nudity 
is  complete,  and  their  unconsciousness  absolute. 
In  nature's  garb  they  toddle  along  some  of  the 
streets  of  the  cities,  and  in  the  rural  districts 
they  may  be  seen  in  the  same  condition  in  and 
around  their  humble  homes.  Naked  babies 
lie  kicking  in  hammocks  or  more  quietly  in 
their  mothers'  arms,  and  naked  children  run 


FRANK  J.  O'REILLY. 

(One  of  the  Early  Colonists.) 


The  Cubans.  1 1 1 


about  at  play.  I  once  stopped  at  a  shack  to 
get  coffee,  and  while  waiting  in  the  open  front 
of  the  "casa"  for  its  preparation,  was  sur- 
rounded by  a  bevy  of  bright  little  children 
who  had  neglected  to  put  on  their  clothes.  At 
last  it  seemed  to  occur  to  a  pretty  four-year- 
old  girl  that  she  was  not  properly  attired  for 
company,  so  she  sat  down  on  the  dirt  floor 
and  pulled  on  a  slipper  !  She  appeared  some- 
what disturbed  at  not  being  able  to  find  its 
mate,  and  hunted  quite  a  while  for  it,  but 
finally  gave  up  the  search  and  accepted  the 
situation,  evidently  concluding  that  a  single 
shoe  was  clothing  enough  in  which  to  receive 
even  such  distinguished  guests  as  "  Ameri- 
canos." With  the  adult  members  of  the 
family,  also,  this  nakedness  of  the  children 
passes  as  a  matter  of  course.  The  climate  is 
so  mild  that  clothing  is  not  demanded,  but  I 
caught  myself  wondering  if  insects  never 
bite  Cubans. 

The  Cubans  are  rather  an  abstemious  peo- 
ple. They  care  little  for  their  food  and  are 
not  given  to  excessive  drinking.  Those  in 
the  country  around  La  Gloria  lived  chiefly  on 
pork,  stewed  beans,  rice,  and  boniatos  (sweet 
potatoes).  It  is  a  mistaken  idea  that  they  do 
not  eat  much  meat ;  they  eat  a  great  deal  of 


ii2  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

pork  in  all  forms,  and  seem  to  be  equally  fond 
of  wild  hog  and  the  domesticated  animal.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  small  difference  be- 
tween the  two.  Both  are  "  razor  backs,"  and 
have  practically  no  fat  on  them.  The  flesh 
tastes  about  as  much  like  beef  as  it  does  like 
the  fatted  pork  of  New  England  swine.  The 
Cubans  keep  a  good  deal  of  poultry,  but  from 
personal  observation  I  cannot  say  that  they 
eat  much  of  it.  The  hens  and  the  eggs  are 
small,  but  the  former  sell  for  one  dollar 
apiece  and  the  latter  for  about  forty  cents  a 
dozen.  The  Cubans  in  the  rural  parts  of 
the  province  of  Puerto  Principe  eat  very  little 
beef,  but  this  may  be  because  it  is  not  easy  to 
get  it,  while  lamb  and  mutton  are  unheard  of. 
The  Cubans  make  excellent  coffee  of  their 
own  raising,  which  they  invariably  drink  with- 
out milk.  Coffee  alone  forms  the  early 
breakfast,  the  substantial  breakfast  being  at 
ten  o'clock,  and  the  dinner  (la  comida)  at  three 
or  four  o'clock.  There  is  nothing  to  eat  after 
this,  but  there  may  be  coffee  in  the  evening. 
In  fact,  the  Cubans  are  liable  to  drink  coffee 
at  any  hour  of  the  day,  and  they  always  wind 
up  their  two  regular  meals  with  it.  They  are 
fond  of  sweets,  particularly  a  sort  of  preserved 
orange  (dulce  naranja).  It  may  be  that  they 


The  Cubans.  113 


eat  fresh  fruit,  but  when  I  do  not  know,  for  I 
never  saw  a  Cuban  eating  an  orange,  a  ban- 
ana, or  a  pineapple.  These  they  sold  to  us  at 
rather  excessive  prices.  The  Cubans  nearly 
all  drink,  but  very  little  at  a  time,  and  rarely 
get  drunk.  Their  favorite  drinks  are  wine, 
rum,  and  brandy  (aguardiente).  In  a  holi- 
day week  in  the  city  of  Puerto  Principe,  the 
only  two  men  I  saw  intoxicated  were  Ameri- 
cans. One  was  a  soldier,  the  other  a  camp 
follower. 

The  Cubans  of  the  rural  districts  did  not 
appear  to  be  religious,  although  there  was  apt 
to  be  a  rude  wooden  cross  fixed  in  the  ground 
in  front  of  their  dwellings,  possibly  with  a 
superstitious  idea  of  thus  averting  evil.  These 
crosses  were  nothing  more  than  a  slender  pole, 
eight  or  ten  feet  high,  stripped  of  its  bark, 
with  a  cross  piece  near  the  top.  They  were 
dry  and  weather  beaten,  and  looked  more  like 
a  roost  for  birds  than  a  religious  emblem. 
Smaller  wooden  crosses  were  to  be  found  in 
the  little  graveyards  that  we  occasionally  came 
upon.  These  seldom  contained  more  than 
two  or  three  graves,  which  were  unmarked  by 
any  visible  name  or  inscription.  In  the  vil- 
lages there  were,  of  course,  larger  cemeteries, 
but  the  country  I  am  writing  of  was  very 


1 14  Pioneering  in   Cuba. 

sparsely  settled,  averaging  scarcely  more  than 
one  or  two  families  to  the  square  mile. 

The  natives  appeared  to  have  very  few 
amusements.  They  hunted  somewhat,  and  in 
the  villages  and  cities  had  occasional  dances 
of  rather  a  weird  character.  They  had  cock 
fights,  too,  I  suppose,  but  these  did  not  seem 
to  be  a  feature  of  the  country  life  about  us. 
The  rural  Cuban  spends  much  of  his  time  in 
riding  about  the  country  on  his  patient  and 
intelligent  pony,  buying  supplies  and  dispos- 
ing of  his  small  produce.  When  they  till 
their  land  is  a  mystery,  for  they  never  seem 
to  be  at  work  upon  it.  In  fact,  very  little  was 
tilled  at  all  in  the  region  about  La  Gloria.  It 
was  no  uncommon  thing  to  find  a  man  owning 
hundreds  of  acres,  with  less  than  one  acre 
under  cultivation.  This  condition  was  usually 
•explained  by  the  statement  that  everything 
had  been  killed  out  during  the  Ten  Years' 
War,  and  that  the  natives  were  too  poor  to 
again  put  their  land  under  cultivation.  This 
was  a  half-truth,  at  least,  but  Cuban  indiffer- 
ence must  have  had  something  to  do  with  it. 
One  of  the  La  Gloria  colonists  once  asked  an 
intelligent  and  good-appearing  elderly  Cuban 
why  he  did  not  cultivate  more  of  his  land. 
"  What  is  the  use?"  was  the  reply.  "  When 


The  Cubans.  1 1 5 

I  need  money  I  pick  off  some  bananas  and 
sell  them.  I  get  for  them  twenty  or  twenty- 
five  dollars,  which  lasts  me  a  long  time. 
When  I  need  more  money,  I  pick  more  bana- 
nas." This  is  the  common  Cuban  view. 
His  natural  indifference,  combined  with  the 
exactions  of  Spanish  government,  has  kept 
his  mind  free  from  any  thought  of  making 
provision  for  the  future. 

The  reader  should  bear  in  mind  that  I  have 
been  describing  the  people  of  the  province  of 
Puerto  Principe,  and  mainly  of  the  rural  por- 
tions thereof.  I  am  well  aware  that  in  the 
more  thickly  settled  and  more  prosperous 
provinces  fine  country  houses  are  sometimes 
to  be  found,  and  the  people  generally  may 
live  somewhat  differently  and  perhaps  better, 
but  I  believe  I  have  faithfully  pictured  the 
typical  Cuban  as  he  exists  to-day  in  the  coun- 
try districts  of  Puerto  Principe,  the  fertile  and 
unfortunate  province  which  has  probably  suf- 
fered more  from  the  ravages  of  war  in  the 
last  thirty  years  than  any  other  province  in 
the  island.  It  was  completely  despoiled  dur- 
ing the  Ten  Years'  War,  and  has  never  re- 
covered. Its  deserted  plantations  are  now 
being  reclaimed,  largely  by  Americans,  and 
ere  long  will  blossom  forth  with  luscious  fruits 
and  other  valuable  products. 


n6  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

The  slight  acquaintance  which  I  had  with 
the  Cubans  of  the  cities  of  Puerto  Principe 
and  Nuevitas  led  me  to  the  belief  that  they 
did  not  differ  greatly  from  the  more  intel- 
ligent inhabitants  of  the  country  sections. 
Among  the  half  hundred  Cubans  who  worked 
for  the  company  and  occupied  a  camp  at  La 
Gloria,  were  many  from  the  cities  of  the 
province,  the  others  coming  from  small  towns 
and  villages.  Most  of  them  had  served  in 
the  Cuban  army — the  "Army  of  Liberation," 
as  it  was  called.  Though  these  men  had  but 
few  comforts,  they  appeared  to  be  happy 
and  contented  ;  they  were  almost  invariably 
peaceable  and  good-humored.  The  Ameri- 
cans liked  these  "Cu-bi-ans" — as  some  of 
the  colonists  persisted  in  calling  them — and 
entire  harmony  prevailed.  It  was  amusing 
to  me  when  we  first  arrived  to  hear  some  of 
the  Western  colonists  inadvertently  speak  of 
them  as  "the  Indians,"  owing,  I  suppose,  to 
their  primitive  mode  of  living.  Columbus 
called  them  by  the  same  name  when,  on  the 
28th  of  October,  1492,  he  landed  on  the 
island  at  a  point  not  twenty  miles  from 
what  is  now  Port  La  Gloria, — but  within  the 
last  four  hundred  years  the  appellation  of 
"Cuban"  has  become  well  known  through- 


The  Cubans. 


117 


out  the  world.  The  Cubans  must  work  out 
their  own  destiny,  but  I  am  satisfied  that 
they  will  steadily  progress  in  the  scale  of 
civilization. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

STEPS  OF  PROGRESS. 

THE  opening  of  the  month  of  February 
found  the  colonists  in  excellent  health  and 
good  spirits,  and  hard  at  work  on  their  land 
or  for  the  company.  The  La  Gloria  post- 
office  had  been  established,  church  services 
were  held  regularly  in  a  large  tent,  and  the 
La  Gloria  Pioneer  Association  had  been 
organized  and  held  its  regular  meeting  on 
Saturday  evening  of  each  week.  Town  lots 
were  being  cleared,  gardens  planted,  and 
pineapple  plants  set  out  as  fast  as  the  land 
could  be  prepared  and  the  "suckers" 
obtained. 

Through  the  active  efforts  of  General  Van 

O 

der  Voort,  a  United  States  post-office  was 
established  immediately  after  his  arrival. 
The  general  held  the  commission  as  post- 
master, and  selected  for  his  assistant,  Col. 
John  F.  Early  of  Wilber,  Nebraska,  who  had 
been  postmaster  of  his  town  before  coming 
to  Cuba  The  general  being  otherwise  en- 
gaged, most  of  the  actual  work  of  the  office 


Steps  of  Progress.  119 

fell  upon  Colonel  Early,  who  was  well  quali- 
fied to  perform  it.  Some  months  later,  Van 
der  Voort  resigned  the  postmastership,  and 
Early  was  promoted  to  the  head  of  the  office. 
The  post-office  first  occupied  a  small  space 
in  headquarters  tent,  but  was  soon  moved  to 
a  tent  by  itself  near  at  hand.  Here  it  re- 
mained until  the  fall  of  1900,  when  it  was 
moved  into  a  new  wooden  building  con- 
structed for  it  on  Central  avenue.  From 
the  first  the  office  did  considerable  business, 
which  steadily  increased.  The  colonists 
wrote  and  received  many  letters,  but  were 
loud  in  their  complaints  of  the  irregularity 
and  infrequency  of  the  mails.  In  a  measure, 
this  faultfinding  was  justified,  but  the  philo- 
sophical were  more  patient  and  felt  that  the 
colony  was  lucky  to  have  a  post-office  at  all. 
The  remedy  was  slow  in  coming,  but  the 
mail  facilities  gradually  improved.  At  first 
the  letters  were  collected  at  the  office  in  a 
wooden  box,  but  before  many  weeks  had 
passed  a  regulation  metallic  receptacle, 
painted  red  and  marked  "  U.  S.  Mail," 
was  placed  in  front  of  the  tent.  I  well 
remember  the  shout  that  went  up  from  the 
assembled  colonists  when  this  reminder  of 
home  and  civilization  was  brought  in  on 


I2O  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

horseback  from  the  port  by  the  mail  carrier. 
It  seemed  almost  like  having  a  glimpse  of 
the  old  home. 

The  regular  sworn  mail  carrier  between 
Port  La  Gloria  and  the  post-office  was  Senor 
Ciriaco  Rivas,  familiarly  known  as  "  the  old 
senor "  among  the  colonists,  by  whom  he 
was  much  beloved.  He  was  a  true-hearted 
gentleman  and  a  brave  soldier,  being  a  vet- 
eran of  the  Ten  Years'  War  and  the  later  con- 
flict. He  was  one  of  the  best  friends  that  the 
colonists  had,  and  was  their  guest  and  com- 
panion on  many  occasions,  and  sometimes 
their  host.  Senor  Rivas  owned  a  large  tract 
of  land  in  the  neighborhood,  but  lived  with 
his  family  in  the  Cuban  camp  at  La  Gloria. 
While  scorning  to  take  pay  from  individuals 
for  his  services,  he  assisted  the  colonists  in 
manifold  ways.  In  the  summer  of  1900  he 
was  named  by  the  government  as  alcalde 
(magistrate)  of  La  Gloria  and  the  country 
for  five  miles  around,  but  on  the  i5th  day  of 
the  following  September  he  died  at  Nuevitas, 
lamented  alike  by  Cubans  and  Americans. 

Besides  attending  to  his  post-office  duties, 
Colonel  Early  represented  large  land  in- 
terests in  the  colony  and  gave  much  time  to 
work  in  connection  therewith.  He  was  one 


Steps  of  Progress.  121 


of  the  most  enthusiastic  of  the  colonists, 
being  delighted  with  the  country  and  its 
prospects.  Fond  of  hunting  and  fishing,  a 
lover  of  birds,  trees,  and  flowers,  versatile  in 
his  tastes  and  accomplishments,  Colonel 
Early  found  Cuba  much  to  his  liking,  and 
complained  of  nothing  save  the  "hell-hens," 
as  he  irreverently  called  the  despised  jejines 
(sand  flies).  He  was  a  veteran  of  the  Civil 
War,  and  had  been  something  of  a  politician 
in  his  Nebraska  home. 

Unlike  the  mining  camps  of  our  great 
West,  La  Gloria  was  a  moral  and  orderly 
town.  This  was  largely  due  to  the  fact  that 
General  Van  der  Voort  insisted  that  no 
liquor  should  be  sold,  a  prohibition  which 
was  rigidly  enforced.  The  result  was  that 
there  was  peace  and  quiet,  and  no  crime  save 
a  few  small  thefts.  Very  little  policing  was 
necessary.  At  the  beginning  the  police  force 
consisted  of  Mr.  George  H.  Matthews  of 
Asbury  Park,  N.  J.,  whose  only  duty  ap- 
peared to  be  a  daily  tour  of  the  camp  in  the 
early  evening.  Chief  of  Police  Matthews 
lived  in  a  tent  at  the  upper  end  of  the  camp. 
When  darkness  came  on  he  would  light  his 
little  lantern  and  "  go  down  the  line,"  as  he 
called  his  nightly  trip  down  the  main  street 


Steps  of  Progress.  123 

and  back.  The  whole  operation,  including 
lighting  the  lantern,  occupied  about  twenty 
minutes.  Mr.  Matthews  also  plied  the  trade 
of  a  barber,  charging  twenty-five  cents  for  a 
shave.  It  was  finally  decided  that  if  anybody 
was  robbing  the  colonists,  he  was  the  man, 
and  the  police  force  was  abolished  altogether. 
Soon  after  Mr.  Matthews  and  his  wife  re- 
turned to  their  home  in  Asbury  Park.  They 
were  well  liked,  and  their  departure  was 
regretted.  A  little  later  there  were  some 
actual  thefts,  generally  attributed  to  negroes- 
who  lurked  about  the  camp,  and  Eugene 
Kezar,  from  Barre,  Vermont,  was  put  on  as 
night  watchman.  He  performed  this  duty 
faithfully,  as  he  did  every  duty  which  de- 
volved upon  him,  and  the  thefts  soon  ceased. 
Much  of  the  time  Kezar  was  in  the  employ 
of  the  company  in  the  daytime  about  the 
camp,  supervising  the  erection  of  tents, 
taking  care  of  property,  and  performing 
manifold  duties  in  the  interest  of  the  company 
and  the  colonists. 

The  first  church  service  in  La  Gloria  was 
held  on  January  14,  conducted  by  the  Rev. 
A.  E.  Seddon  of  Atlanta,  Ga.,  a  minister  of 
the  Christian  church,  who  was  one  of  the 
colonists  who  came  on  the  first  Yarmouth* 


124  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

It  was  attended  by  a  large  proportion  of  the 
colonists.  Mr.  Seddon  was  a  good  preacher 
and  a  cultivated  man,  but  did  not  long 
remain  at  La  Gloria.  Becoming  interested 
in  another  proposed  colony,  he  took  his 
departure  from  La  Gloria  soon  after  the 
allotment  of  the  land.  Next  the  Rev.  J.  W. 
Harris  of  Vermont  preached  for  one  Sunday, 
but  he  also  took  an  early  departure.  At 
about  this  time  the  venerable  Dr.  William  I. 
Gill  of  Asbury  Park,  N.  J.,  joined  the  colony, 
and  conducted  church  services  for  some 
weeks.  His  health  not  being  good,  he  was 
forced  to  give  up  regular  preaching.  For  a 
time  the  congregation  was  without  an  officiat- 
ing clergyman,  but  sermons  were  read  each 
Sunday  by  some  layman,  and  a  Sabbath 
school  was  regularly  held.  With  the  spring 
came  two  ministers  together,  the  Rev.  James 
G.  Stuart  of  London,  Canada,  and  the  Rev. 
W.  A.  Nicholas  of  Huntington,  West  Vir- 
ginia. Mr.  Stuart's  stay  at  this  time  was 
temporary,  but  he  preached  one  Sunday  to 
the  edification  of  a  good-sized  audience. 
When  his  leave  of  absence  expired  he  re- 
turned to  his  far  away  home  in  Canada,  but 
before  sailing  he  expressed  himself  as  being 
greatly  pleased  with  La  Gloria,  and  made 


Steps  of  Progress.  125 

known  his  intention  to  make  it  his  residence 
at  some  future  time.  He  left  money  to  have 
a  large  tract  of  land  cleared  and  cultivated. 
Mr.  Stuart  had  been  the  owner  of  an  orange 
grove  in  California,  and  was  satisfied  that  the 
fruit  would  do  finely  in  the  soil  around  La 
Gloria.  He  was  highly  enthusiastic  in  his 
praise  of  the  country.  Mr.  Nicholas,  a 
minister  of  the  Baptist  church,  succeeded 
Mr.  Stuart  in  the  La  Gloria  pulpit,  and 
preached  several  weeks.  He  then  returned 
to  West  Virginia  for  the  purpose  of  bringing 
his  family  to  Cuba  to  establish  a  permanent 
home.  In  June  he  brought  his  wife  and 
children  to  La  Gloria  and  resumed  his  reli- 
gious teaching.  He  has  since  preached 
regularly,  and  is  held  in  high  respect  by  the 
colonists.  Mrs.  Nicholas  is  also  very  popular 
in  the  colony.  Mr.  Nicholas  is  delighted  with 
Cuba,  and  is  enjoying  greatly  improved 
health.  Besides  the  preaching  and  Sunday- 
school,  weekly  prayer-meetings,  teachers' 
meetings,  and  choir  meetings  have  been  held 
in  the  colony  from  its  earliest  days. 

The  first  organization  of  the  colonists,  and 
the  force  which  had  most  to  do  with  shaping 
the  course  of  affairs  in  the  early  life  of  the 
colony,  was  the  La  Gloria  Pioneer  Associa- 


DR.  WILLIAM  P.  PEIRCE. 


Steps  of  Progress.  127 

tion.  At  a  mass  meeting  in  front  of  head- 
quarters tent  on  the  i8th  of  January,  Dr. 
W.  P.  Peirce  of  Hoopeston,  111.,  was  made 
temporary  chairman,  and  R.  C.  Bourdette  of 
Dexter,  Kansas,  temporary  secretary.  James 
M.  Adams,  D.  E.  Lowell,  and  R.  C.  Bour- 
dette were  appointed  a  committee  to  draft  a 
constitution  and  by-laws.  At  a  meeting  Jan- 
uary 27  the  committee  reported  a  constitu- 
tion and  by-laws,  which  were  adopted,  and 
the  following  officers  were  elected  for  a  term 
of  six  months  :  Dr.  W.  P.  Peirce,  president; 
D.  E.  Lowell,  vice-president;  R.  G.  Earner, 
secretary  ;  Col.  Thomas  H.  Maginniss,  treas- 
urer ;  E.  B.  Newsom,  W.  G.  Spiker,  J.  A. 
Florence,  W.  M.  Carson,  and  Rev.  William 
I.  Gill,  executive  board.  The  president, 
vice-president,  secretary,  and  treasurer  were 
members  of  the  executive  board  ex-officto. 

Dr.  Peirce,  the  president,  was  one  of  the 
ablest  of  the  colonists,  a  man  of  consequence 
in  his  state,  and  possessed  of  both  mental 
and  financial  resources.  Genial,  kindly,  and 
humorous,  he  was  much  liked  by  his  fellow- 
colonists,  and  made  an  admirable  presiding 
officer  for  the  association.  He  had  entire  faith 
in  the  ultimate  success  of  the  colony,  and  did 
much  to  advance  its  welfare.  Mr.  Lowell, 


128  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

the  vice-president,  had  been  a  successful  fruit 
grower  in  Florida  and  a  leading  citizen  in  that 
section  of  the  state  where  he  resided.  He 
was  one  of  the  first  of  the  colonists  to  reach 
La  Gloria,  coming  in  with  his  wife  before  the 
first  Yarmouth  party  arrived.  He  was  a  sub- 
stantial and  practical  man,  and  a  valuable 
prop  to  the  colony,  wherein  he  was  popular 
and  influential.  Mr.  Earner,  the  secretary, 
was  a  young  man  from  Philadelphia,  and  was 
one  of  the  colonists  who  came  on  the  first 
Yarmouth.  He  was  an  expert  stenographer 
and  typewriter,  and  a  man  of  good  judgment 
and  untiring  industry.  For  a  time  he  worked 
upon  the  land,  but  was  soon  taken  into  the 
president's  office,  where  he  proved  to  be  a 
faithful  and  efficient  clerk  and  secretary. 
Well  liked  among  his  brother  and  sister  col- 
onists, he  was  given  numerous  responsible 
positions  as  new  organizations  were  formed. 
Colonel  Maginniss,  the  treasurer,  was  also 
from  Philadelphia,  and  has  been  before  al- 
luded to  as  the  superintendent  of  the  camp. 
His  duties  as  treasurer  of  the  association  were 
not  arduous,  but  he  performed  good  service 
as  chairman  of  the  committee  on  transporta- 
tion. The  other  members  of  the  executive 
board  were  leading  colonists,  and  intelligent 
and  practical  men. 


Steps  of  Progress.  129 

The  executive  board  appointed  the  follow- 
ing committees  :  Transportation,  Col.  Thomas 
H.  Maginniss  (chairman),  J.  A.  Florence, 
S.  L.  Benham,  W.  P.  Hartzell,  Thomas  R. 
Geer — the  latter  resigning,  he  was  replaced 
by  James  M.  Adams  ;  supplies,  E.  B.  New- 
som  (chr.),  D.  E.  Lowell,  W.  G.  Spiker, 
E.  F.  Rutherford,  M.  T.  Holman  ;  sanitation, 
Dr.  W.  P.  Peirce  (chr.),  G.  A.  Libby,M.T. 
Jones,  W.  S.  Dunbar,  G.  H.  Matthews ; 
manufactures,  D.  L.  Carleton  (chr.),  W.  L. 
Yard,  J.  A.  Anderson,  J.  C.  Kelly,  W.  H. 
Gruver ;  history  of  the  colony,  James  M. 
Adams  (chr.),  A.  E.  Seddon,  Rev.  William 
I.  Gill,  M.  A.  C.  Neff,  F.  X.  Hovora ;  legal 
affairs,  Gen.  Paul  Van  der  Voort  (chr.),  Col. 
Thomas  H.  Maginniss,  Capt.  Joseph  Chace, 
W.  M.  Carson,  J.  F.  Early  ;  education  and 
religious  observance,  Mrs.  Andrews  (chr.), 
Mrs.  D.  E.  Lowell,  Mrs.  W.  G.  Spiker,  Mrs. 
William  I.  Gill,  Mrs.  M.  A.  C.  Neff;  village 
improvements,  M.  A.  C.  Neff  (chr.),  D.  E. 
Lowell,  B.  F.  Seibert,  E.  B.  Newsom,  J.  C. 
Florence,  Peter  Larsen,  H.  E.  Mosher,  S.  M. 
Van  der  Voort,  James  Peirce,  Mrs.  Clara 
Broome,  Mrs.  J.  A.  Horn,  Mrs.  G.  H. 
Matthews.  Mrs.  Andrews  did  not  remain  in' 
La  Gloria,  and  hence  never  served  on  the 
9 


130  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

committee  on  education  and  religious  observ- 
ance ;  Mrs.  D.  E.  Lowell  acted  as  chairman 
and  directed  the  work  of  the  committee  with 
zeal  and  intelligence.  As  time  went  on, 
numerous  other  vacancies  occurred  in  the 
several  committees,  but  these  were  filled  and 
the  work  was  not  retarded.  Most  of  the 
committees  were  more  or  less  active  and 
accomplished  as  much  as  could  reasonably 
be  expected  considering  the  many  obstacles 
encountered.  If  the  net  results  accomplished 
by  the  association  at  this  early  stage  seem 
small,  it  should  be  remembered  that  it  was  no 
slight  task  to  hold  the  colony  together  in  the 
face  of  natural  obstructions,  irritating  delays, 
and  disheartening  disappointments.  All  these 
things  the  colonists  had  to  encounter,  and  the 
Pioneer  Association  performed  a  great  work 
in  banding  the  settlers  together,  staying  their 
courage  and  preventing  a  stampede  in  the 
darkest  hours,  and  in  keeping  things  moving, 
slowly  though  it  may  have  been,  in  the  right 
direction.  Indeed,  it  is  impossible  to  conceive 
what  the  colonists  would  have  done  at  the 
beginning  without  the  cooperative  aid  afforded 
by  this  organization.  Practically  the  whole 
colony  belonged  to  it  during  the  first  few 
months  of  its  existence. 


Steps  of  Progress.  131 

The  meetings  were  held  every  Saturday 
night  and  were  always  well  attended.  They 
were  valued  not  only  for  utilitarian  purposes, 
but  as  almost  the  sole  amusement  enjoyed  by 
the  colonists  during  the  week.  These  meet- 
ings supplied  the  place  of  the  theatre,  the 
lyceum,  and  social  festivities,  and  some  of  the 
women  were  heard  to  say  that  they  looked 
forward  the  whole  week  to  this  regular  gath- 
ering. Subjects  of  absorbing  interest  always 
came  up,  the  speaking  was  quite  good  and 
nevertedious,  and  humorous  and  witty  remarks 
were  very  often  heard  and  fully  appreciated. 
The  ludicrous  always  appealed  to  the  audience 
keenly.  Many  of  the  colonists  participated 
in  the  speaking,  and  the  discussions  were  in- 
variably good  natured.  The  speakers  were 
sure  of  close  attention  and  generous  treat- 
ment from  their  auditors,  even  from  those  who 
might  disagree  with  them.  The  brotherly 
feeling  which  pervaded  the  colony  was  always 
manifest  at  these  gatherings.  Some  of  the 
Cubans  would  often  attend,  and  more  than 
once  a  Spaniard  was  in  the  audience.  It  was 
a  strange  sight,  one  of  these  meetings.  In 
the  dim  light  of  two  or  three  lanterns,  the 
colonists  would  be  grouped  together  under  a 
shelter  tent,  some  sitting  on  rude  wooden 


132  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

benches  and  others  standing.  Those  on  the 
outskirts  were  as  often  under  the  stars  as 
under  the  tent.  Both  the  audience  and  the 
surroundings  were  picturesque,  albeit  the 
whole  effect  was  suggestive  of  a  primitive  life 
which  few  of  the  colonists  had  before  experi- 
enced. The  scene  is  one  that  is  not  likely 
ever  to  be  forgotten  by  those  who  participated 
in  it. 

In  July,  1900,  the  Pioneer  Association 
elected  new  officers,  as  follows :  President, 
D.  E.  Lowell ;  vice-president,  John  Latham  ; 
secretary,  William  M.  Carson ;  treasurer, 
J.  R.  P.  de  les  Derniers.  By  this  time  new 
and  more  wieldy  organizations  had  sprung 
up  which  took  much  of  the  practical  work 
from  the  association,  the  latter  becoming  more 
of  a  reminiscence  than  a  potent  force.  It  is 
still,  however,  a  factor  in  the  social  life  of 
La  Gloria. 


CHAPTER    X. 
EVENTS  IMPORTANT  AND  OTHERWISE. 

ON  the  last  day  of  January  I  became  pri- 
vate secretary  to  President  Van  der  Voort, 
serving  in  that  capacity  until  my  return  to  the 
States  nearly  four  months  later.  This  position 
brought  me  into  close  and  intimate  contact 
with  all  of  the  colonists,  and  to  no  small  ex- 
tent I  shared  their  joys  and  woes.  I  was 
made  the  recipient  of  their  confidences,  and 
was  sometimes  able,  I  believe,  to  make  some- 
what smoother  the  rather  thorny  paths  they 
had  to  travel.  When  I  was  unable  to  do  this, 
it  was  never  from  lack  of  full  sympathy  with 
their  trials  and  hardships.  I  cannot  be  too 
emphatic  in  saying  that  never  in  my  life  have 
I  met  an  aggregation  of  men  and  women  who 
were  more  honest,  good-natured,  patient,  and 
reasonable.  To  me,  personally,  they  invari- 
ably extended  the  kindest  consideration,  and 
so,  for  that  matter,  did  the  officers  of  the  com- 
pany. The  nucleus  for  the  first  American 
colony  in  Cuba  was  beyond  all  question  a 
good  and  substantial  one. 


Important  and  Otherwise.         135 

About  the  middle  of  February  Gen.  Van 
der  Voort  moved  into  his  new  Cuban  house, 
which  had  been  constructed  for  him  by  Cuban 
workmen  in  an  open  space  ninety  or  one  hun- 
dred yards  back  from  the  main  street  of  the 
camp.  The  house  and  most  of  the  tents  con- 
stituting the  camp  were  on  the  company's 
reservation  just  north  of  the  front  line  of  the 
town.  As  fast  as  the  colonists  got  their  town 
lots  cleared  they  moved  on  to  them,  but  their 
places  in  the  reservation  camp  were  often 
taken  by  new-comers. 

The  general's  palm  house,  or  shack,  was 
an  ingenious  and  interesting  piece  of  work. 
The  Cubans  exercised  all  their  marvelous 
skill  in  its  construction,  with  highly  creditable 
results.  When  completed  it  was  water  tight, 
and  cool,  comfortable,  and  picturesque.  The 
house  contained  two  good-sized  rooms,  an 
enclosed  bedroom  at  the  back  and  an  open 
apartment  at  the  front  used  for  an  office  and 
reception-room.  Until  a  conventional  board 
floor  was  laid  by  an  "Americano"  carpenter, 
there  was  not  a  nail  in  the  entire  structure. 
The  upright  poles,  cross  pieces,  the  ridgepole, 
and  the  rafters  and  cross  rafters,  were  securely 
fastened  together  with  tough  bark  and  vines, 
while  the  roof  was  carefully  thatched  with 


136  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

palm  leaves.  The  latter  were  broad,  fan- 
shaped  leaves,  several  feet  across  at  the 
widest  part.  Each  had  a  stout  stem  two  or 
three  feet  long.  The  leaves  were  laid  upon 
the  roof,  beginning  at  the  eaves,  stems  point- 
ing to  the  ridgepole.  The  leaves  were  care- 
fully lapped  like  shingles,  and  tightly  lashed 
by  the  stems  to  the  rafters  and  cross  rafters. 
If  a  leak  was  discovered  it  was  easy  to  close 
it  by  binding  on  another  leaf.  The  leaves 
used  came  from  what  is  commonly  known  as 
the  dwarf  or  cabbage  palm.  Royal  palm 
bark  was  used  along  the  ridgepole.  The 
back  and  sides  of  the  house  were  of  palm 
leaves,  as  was  the  front  of  the  rear  room,  a 
door  being  cut  through  it.  The  front  of  the 
outer  apartment  was  entirely  open.  The 
original  floor  was  of  wood  cut  from  the  royal 
palm,  the  rough  and  heavy  boards,  or  planks, 
being  fastened  to  crost>  logs  by  wooden  pins. 
Not  proving  entirely  satisfactory,  this  floor, 
after  a  short  time,  was  replaced  by  a  more 
even  one  laid  by  a  Yankee  carpenter.  This 
was  the  only  change  made  by  General  Van 
der  Voort  in  his  Cuban  house,  with  which  he 
was  greatly  delighted.  When  new  the  pre- 
vailing color,  inside  and  out.  was  a  beautiful 
green,  which  soon  turned  to  a  yellowish 


Important  and  Otherwise.         137 

brown.  The  change  did  not  add  to  its  beauty, 
but  it  still  remained  comfortable  and  pictur- 
esque. The  cost  of  such  a  house  in  La  Gloria 
was  about  fifty  dollars.  The  general's  house 
was  wonderfully  cool,  as  I  can  testify  from 
personal  experience,  having  occupied  it  daily 
for  three  months. 

Within  a  dozen  yards  of  the  general's 
house  stood  a  historic  landmark  known  as  the 
"  Lookout  Tree,"  a  gigantic  tree  used  by  the 
Cubans  during  the  Ten  Years'  War  and  the 
late  insurrection  to  watch  for  Spanish  gun- 
boats that  patroled  the  coast  and  for  filibusters 
bringing  arms  and  ammunition.  It  was  at 
or  very  near  Port  La  Gloria — known  to  the 
Cubans  as  Viaro — that  the  celebrated  Gusste 
landed  her  arms  and  ammunition  for  the 
Cubans,  just  after  the  intervention  of  the 
United  States.  Up  through  the  "Lookout 
Tree"  grow  what  appear  to  be  two  small  and 
very  straight  trees,  about  three  feet  apart ; 
actually,  they  are  the  downward  shooting 
branches  of  a  parasitic  growth,  taking  root  in 
the  ground.  The  Cubans  have  utilized  these 
for  a  ladder,  cutting  notches  into  them  and 
fastening  cross-pieces,  or  rungs,  very  securely 
with  barbed  wire.  One  may  climb  high  into 
the  big  tree  by  this  curious  ladder,  and  from 


138  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

the  top  a  good  view  of  the  coast  is  obtained. 
After  our  arrival  the  tree  was  sometimes 
brought  into  requisition  in  watching  for  the 
boat  from  Nuevitas,  and  the  good  climbers 
among  the  colonists  often  made  the  ascent 
merely  for  the  satisfaction  of  performing  the 
feat,  which  was  not  such  an  easy  one  as  might 
appear,  since  the  ladder  did  not  reach  to  the 
top  by  fifteen  or  twenty  feet. 

A  space  of  about  half  an  acre,  chiefly  in 
front  of  the  house,  General  Van  der  Voort 
had  plowed  and  planted  for  a  garden.  Veg- 
etables were  sown  in  February  and  a  little 
later  a  good  number  of  pineapple  plants,  ba- 
nana, orange  and  coffee  trees,  etc.,  were  set 
out.  The  vegetables  began  to  come  on  in 
April,  and  the  fruit  trees  and  pineapples  ex- 
hibited a  thrifty  growth  from  month  to  month. 
Small  palm  trees  were  also  set  out  along  the 
path  leading  from  the  house  across  the  gar- 
den to  Central  avenue.  The  company  had 
another  and  larger  garden  near  by  which  was 
planted  in  the  latter  part  of  January.  Some 
of  its  products  were  ready  for  the  table  in 
March,  and  radishes  even  earlier.  The  soil 
of  these  gardens  was  not  of  the  richest,  being 
red  and  containing  oxide  of  iron ;  but,  for  all 
that,  seeds  came  up  marvelously  quick  and 


Important  and  Otherwise.         139- 


plants  grew  well.  I  have  known  beans  which 
were  planted  Saturday  morning  to  be  up  on 
the  following  Monday.  The  soil  of  practi- 
cally all  of  the  plantations  and  many  of  the 
town  lots  is  very  rich. 

On  February  21,  the  day  before  Washing- 
ton's birthday,  occurred  the  first  birth  in  La 
Gloria,  a  lusty  son  being  born  to  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Olaf  Olson.  Mr.  Olson  was  one  of  the 
most  prosperous  and  progressive  of  the  colo- 
nists, and  his  wife  was  a  true  pioneer.  At  the 
time  of  the  birth  the  Olsons  were  living  in  a 
tent  on  their  town  lot  on  Market  street,  not 
far  from  Central  avenue.  Dr.  Peirce  was  the 
officiating- physician,  and  the  infant  developed 
as  rapidly,  in  proportion,  as  plants  in  that 
tropical  clime.  It  proved  to  be  a  remarkably 
healthy  child.  It  was  promptly  named  Olaf 
El  Gloria  Olson,  and  on  the  request  of  the 
Pioneer  Association,  the  company  generously 
made  it  a  present  of  a  town  lot.  Soon  after 
the  birth  of  the  child,  Mr.  Olson  moved  into  a 
house  of  his  own  construction. 

The  weather  at  this  time  was  good  and 
the  temperature  very  comfortable.  Ordinarily 
the  thermometer  registered  throughout  the 
day  from  70  to  84  degrees  of  heat.  The  low- 
est temperature  for  January  was  55° ;  the 


140  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

highest,  91°.  The  lowest  for  February  was 
56°  ;  the  highest,  91°.  The  extremes  of  heat 
are  nearly  as  great  in  winter  as  in  summer, 
but  there  is  much  more  variation.  In  summer 
the  temperature  ordinarily  runs  from  about 
78°  to  90°,  but  occasionally  touches  94°, 
which  is  the  highest  I  have  ever  known  it  to 
be  in  La  Gloria.  Even  at  this  figure  the  heat 
is  not  oppressive.  There  is  such  a  refreshing 
breeze  night  and  day  in  Cuba  that  one  does 
not  suffer  from  the  heat  either  in  summer  or 
winter.  The  climate  is  so  fine  at  all  seasons 
•of  the  year,  that  to  a  New  Englander  it  seems 
absolutely  perfect.  The  colonists  worked 
hard  every  day  under  the  rays  of  the  sun  and 
.suffered  no  ill  effects.  They  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  getting  acclimated  was  a  "  cinch  " 
in  comparison  with  enduring  the  changing 
weather  of  the  Northern  states. 

During  the  first  week  in  February  the  col- 
onists, such  of  them  as  were  not  otherwise 
employed,  began  the  construction  of  a  cor- 
duroy road  over  the  worst  places  on  the  trail 
from  La  Gloria  to  the  port.  The  work  was 
under  the  supervision  of  Colonel  Maginniss, 
and  from  twenty  to  thirty  men  labored  daily 
for  some  time.  While  not  of  a  permanent 
character,  this  work  made  the  road  more 


Important  and  Otherwise.         141 

passable  for  pedestrians  and  animals,  and 
was  of  material  aid  in  the  hauling  up  of  pro- 
visions and  belated  baggage.  By  the  end. 
of  February  most  of  us  had  got  our  trunks. 
The  workers  on  the  road  were  employed  by 
the  company,  with  the  understanding  that 
their  wages  should  be  credited  upon  their 
land  payments,  or  upon  the  purchase  of  new 
land.  This  was  satisfactory  to  the  colonists, 
and  many  took  advantage  of  the  opportunity 
to  acquire  more  town  lots.  Many  other 
employes  of  the  company  also  turned  in  their 
time  for  the  purchase  of  plantation  land  or 
town  lots. 

On  the  1 9th  of  February  the  first  well  in 
La  Gloria  was  opened.  It  was  at  the  corner 
of  Market  street  and  Florida  avenue,  and 
was  dug  by  a  syndicate  of  colonists  who  lived 
in  that  vicinity.  Good  water  was  struck  at 
a  depth  of  about  twelve  feet.  Many  people 
used  the  water  from  this  well,  and  a  little 
later  it  was  made  considerably  deeper.  The 
well  was  square,  and  the  ground  was  so  hard 
at  this  point  that  it  was  found  to  be  unneces- 
sary to  stone  it.  Many  other  wells  were  dug 
soon  after,  in  all  of  which  good  water  was 
found  fifteen  or  twenty  feet  below  the  surface 
of  the  ground. 


•142  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

Early  in  February,  M.  A.  C.  Neff,  engi- 
neer and  architect,  who  had  been  in  charge 
of  the  town  site  survey,  was  transferred  to 
the  work  of  preparing  real  estate  maps  and 
books.  Mr.  Neff  was  a  fine  draughtsman, 
and  his  colored  maps  were  a  delight  to  the 
eye.  One  of  his  maps  was  used  in  the  allot- 
ment of  town  lots,  another  was  placed  on  file 
at  Puerto  Principe  in  connection  with  the 
recording  of  deeds,  while  others  were  sent 
to  the  New  York  office  of  the  company  or 
kept  for  use  in  La  Gloria.  Much  credit  is 
due  Mr.  Neff  for  his  part  in  the  upbuilding 
of  La  Gloria.  He  was  enthusiastic  in  for- 
warding improvements  of  all  kinds.  Both 
he  and  his  admirable  wife  considered  them- 
selves colonists,  and  looked  forward  with 
pleasant  anticipations  to  a  permanent  home 
in  La  Gloria. 


CHAPTER   XI. 
SELF-RELIANCE  OF  THE  COLONISTS. 

I  WAS  deeply  impressed  by  the  courage 
and  self-reliance  of  the  colonists.  From  the 
start  they  showed  a  splendid  ability  to  take 
care  of  themselves.  One  day  early  in  Feb- 
ruary a  white-bearded  old  fellow  past  seventy 
years  of  age,  with  blue  overalls  on  and  a  hoe 
over  his  shoulder,  appeared  at  the  door  of 
General  Van  der  Voort's  tent. 

"  General,"  he  said,  "  if  a  man  owns  a  lot, 
has  anybody  else  a  right  to  come  on  to  it  and 
pick  fruit  of  any  kind  ?  " 

"  Not  if  the  owner  has  a  revolver  and 
bowie  knife,"  laughingly  replied  Van  der 
Voort. 

"  Well,"  said  the  man,  "  I  just  thought  I'd 
ask  ye.  A  couple  o'  fellers  (Cubans)  came 
on  to  my  lot  to-day  while  I  was  at  work  there 
and  began  to  pick  some  o'  these  'ere  guavas. 
I  told  'em  to  git  out,  but  they  did  n't  go. 
Then  I  went  for  'em  with  this  hoe.  One  of 
'em  drawed  his  machete,  but  I  did  n't  care  for 
that.  I  knew  I  could  reach  him  with  my  hoe 


144  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

before    he    could    reach    me  with    his    knife. 
They  went  off." 

General  Van  der  Voort  laughed  heartily,. 
and  evidently  was  satisfied  that  the  man  with 
the  hoe  was  able  to  protect  himself  without 
the  aid  of  the  La  Gloria  police  force. 

The  old  man's  name,  as  I  afterwards 
learned,  was  Joseph  B.  Withee.  Some  of 
the  colonists  who  had  become  intimately 
acquainted  with  him  familiarly  called  him 
"  grandpa,"  although  he  was  not  the  oldest 
man  in  the  colony.  His  age  was  seventy- 
one  years,  and  he  hailed  from  the  state  of 
Maine.  None  of  his  family  or  friends  had 
come  to  Cuba  with  him,  but  he  had  grown 
children  living  in  the  Pine  Tree  state.  Alone 
and  single-handed  he  began  his  pioneer  life 
in  La  Gloria,  but  he  was  not  daunted  by 
obstacles  or  fearful  of  the  future.  On  the 
contrary,  he  was  most  sanguine.  He  worked 
regularly  every  day  clearing  and  planting 
his  plantation,  and  was  one  of  the  first  of  the 
colonists  to  take  up  his  residence  on  his  own 
land.  He  soon  had  vegetables  growing,  and 
had  set  out  strawberry  and  pineapple  plants, 
besides  a  number  of  banana,  orange,  and 
lemon  trees.  It  was  his  boast  that  he  had 
the  best  spring  of  water  in  the  colony,  and  it 


Self- Reliance  of  the  Colonists.     145 

certainly  was  a  very  good  one.  Mr.  Withee 
declared  that  his  health  was  much  improved 
since  coming  to  Cuba,  and  that  he  felt  ten  or 
fifteen  years  younger.  Everybody  in  the 
colony  could  bear  witness  that  he  was  re- 
markably active  and  industrious.  Once  his 
relatives  in  Maine,  not  hearing  from  him, 
became  alarmed,  and  wrote  to  the  company 
asking  if  he  were  alive  and  in  La  Gloria. 
I  went  down  to  his  plantation  with  the  letter, 
and  asked  him  if  he  was  alive.  He  thought 
he  was,  and  suspended  work  long  enough  to 
sniff  at  the  idea  that  he  was  not  able  to  take 
care  of  himself. 

Mr.  Withee  was  wont  to  admit  that  before 
he  came  to  Cuba  he  had  a  weak  back,  but 
the  only  weakness  we  were  ever  able  to 
detect  in  him  was  an  infirmity  of  temper 
which  foreboded  pugnacious  action.  Most 
assuredly  he  had  plenty  of  backbone,  and  his 
persistent  pugnacity  was  highly  amusing. 
He  was  always  wanting  to  "lick"  some- 
body, and  I  know  not  what  rny  fate  will  be 
if  we  ever  meet  after  he  reads  these  lines, 
although  we  were  excellent  friends  in  La 
Gloria.  I  can  imagine  that  my  friend  Withee 
was  brought  up  in  one  of  those  country  school 
"  deestricts "  where  every  boy  had  to  fight 


146  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

his  way  step  by  step  to  the  respect  of  his 
associates,  and  where  it  was  the  custom  for 
the  big  scholars  to  attempt  each  winter  to 
thrash  the  teacher  and  throw  him  into  a 
snowdrift.  If  so,  I  will  warrant  that  Withee 
was  held  in  high  respect. 

Withee  had  a  great  idea  of  standing  up 
for  his  rights,  and  for  a  long  time  he  was  on 
the  war-path,  as  he  confided  to  me,  in  pur- 
suit of  a  surveyor  who  had  cut  down  a  small 
palm  tree  on  his  plantation.  He  didn't  know 
which  individual  of  the  survey  corps  it  was 
who  perpetrated  the  "  outrage,"  but  if  the  old 
man  found  out,  one  of  Chief  Kelly's  men  was 
in  for  a  good  licking.  Of  course,  the  sur- 
veyor was  entirely  innocent  of  any  intent  to 
injure  the  property  of  Mr.  Withee  or  any- 
body else,  and  cut  the  tree  while  running  a 
survey  line.  It  was  some  months  after  this, 
in  September,  that  the  spirit  of  Withee's 
revolutionary  sires  joined  issue  with  his 
fierce  indignation,  and  produced  fatal  re- 
sults— fatal  to  several  chickens  that  invaded 
his  premises.  A  neighboring  colonist,  who 
lived  on  the  other  side  of  the  avenue,  kept 
a  large  number  of  hens,  and  allowed  them 
free  range.  They  developed  a  fondness  for 
wandering  across  the  road,  and  feeding  in 


Self-Reliance  of  the  Colonists.     147 

Withee's  well-stocked  garden.  They  didn't 
know  Withee.  The  old  man  sputtered  vehe- 
mently, and  remonstrated  with  the  owner — 
but  the  chickens  continued  to  come.  Finally, 
Withee  went  to  a  friendly  colonist  and  bor- 
rowed his  gun.  Soon  after  his  return  home, 
one  of  the  detested  hens  wandered  nonchal- 
antly across  the  dead  line,  and  presently  was 
minus  a  head.  Another  essayed  the  same 
feat,  with  the  result  that  there  were  two  head- 
less chickens  in  La  Gloria.  Withee's  aim 
was  as  good  as  when  he  used  to  shoot  chip- 
munks in  the  Maine  woods.  The  owner  of 
the  hens  heard  the  reports  of  the  gun,  and 
came  over.  He  was  told  to  go  home  and  pen 
up  his  poultry.  Taking  the  two  dead  chicks, 
he  went  to  the  Rural  Guards  and  entered  a 
complaint.  While  he  was  gone,  Withee  re- 
duced the  poultry  population  of  La  Gloria  by 
one  more.  The  owner  of  the  hens  returned, 
accompanied  by  Rural  Guards,  several  prom- 
inent Cubans,  and  a  few  colonists.  They  had 
come  to  take  the  gun  away  from  Withee. 
The  old  man  stood  the  whole  crowd  off,  and 
told  them  to  keep  their  feet  clear  of  his  place. 
They  obeyed  the  order,  but  told  him  he 
must  kill  no  more  chickens  under  penalty 
of  arrest.  He  told  them  to  keep  the  chickens 


148  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

off  his  premises  under  penalty  of  their  being 
killed.  The  old  man  was  left  the  master  of 
the  situation,  and  the  hens  were  restricted  to 
a  pen. 

Speaking  of  courage  and  self-confidence 
reminds  me  of  a  remark  of  big  Jack  Mc- 
Cauley.  There  was  included  in  the  com- 
pany's property,  about  five  miles  from  La 
Gloria,  a  deserted  plantation  known  as  Mer- 
cedes. Upon  it  was  an  old  grove  of  orange 
trees,  which,  in  the  spring  of  1900,  bore  a 
fine  crop.  For  a  long  time  everybody  was 
allowed  to  help  himself  at  will,  and  Cubans, 
colonists,  and  surveyors  availed  themselves 
of  the  opportunity  to  lay  in  a  supply  of  fruit. 
At  length,  as  the  oranges  grew  riper,  orders 
were  given  that  no  one  should  take  more 
than  he  could  eat  on  the  spot,  but  the 
oranges  continued  to  disappear  by  the  bag- 
ful. Stalwart  Jack  McCauley  was  at  that 
time  employed  about  the  camp  by  the  com- 
pany, and  it  was  decided  to  station  him  out 
at  Mercedes,  with  a  view  to  stopping  the 
raids  on  the  orange  grove.  Before  leaving 
to  undertake  this  duty,  Jack  quietly  re- 
marked:  "I'll  go  out  there  and  see  if  I've 
got  any  influence,  and  if  not,  I  '11  create 
some!"  Big  Jack's  "influence"  proved  to 


Self- Reliance  of  the  Colonists.    149 

be  ample,  and  the  balance  of  the  orange 
crop  was  saved. 

McCauley's  close  friend  and  "  pardner " 
was  J.  A.  Messier,  familiarly  known  as  ''Al- 
bany." Together  they  held  a  large  tract  of 
plantation  land.  "Albany"  worked  as  a 
flagman  in  one  of  the  surveying  parties. 
Once,  when  the  mosquitoes  in  the  woods 
were  more  than  ordinarily  thick  and  fero- 
cious, he  made  a  complaint,  a  rare  thing  in 
him  or  any  other  surveyor.  "  They  surround 
you,"  he  said,  "  and  you  can  't  push  them 
away  because  there  is  nowhere  to  push 
them!"  "Albany"  was  the  leading  big 
snake  killer  in  the  colony,  and  was  an  adept 
at  stretching  and  preparing  their  skins. 
But  perhaps  his  greatest  distinction  was  that 
of  being  floor  manager  of  the  first  ball  in 
La  Gloria,  a  notable  event  which  will  be 
described  in  a  later  chapter. 

On  the  afternoon  of  February  27,  the  colo- 
nists who  came  on  the  third  and  last  trip 
of  the  Yarmouth,  about  sixty  in  number, 
reached  La  Gloria.  Among  them  were 
Arnold  Mollenhauer  of  New  York,  a  repre- 
sentative of  the  company  ;  John  A.  Connell 
of  East  Weymouth,  Mass.,  and  S.  W.  Storm 
of  Nebraska.  The  party  was  brought  up 


Self-Reliance  of  the  Colonists.    151 

from  Nue vitas  on  the  snug  little  steamer  Bay 
Shore,  and  had  a  very  comfortable  passage. 
The  Bay  Shore  was  bought  by  the  company 
to  ply  between  Nuevitas  and  Port  La  Gloria, 
and  was  to  have  been  used  to  transport  the 
colonists  who  came  to  Cuba  on  the  first 
Yarmouth  excursion,  but,  unfortunately,  she 
came  into  collision  with  another  boat  at 
about  that  time,  and  was  unfit  for  use  for 
several  weeks.  This  was  one  of  a  singular 
chain  of  accidents  and  annoyances  which 
gave  the  colony  a  serious  setback  at  the 
very  start.  The  Bay  Shore  proved  to  be  a 
very  unlucky  boat,  and  was  laid  up  from  one 
cause  or  another  most  of  the  time.  When 
the  Bay  Shore  was  out  of  commission,  a 
sail-boat  had  to  be  used  between  La  Gloria 
and  Nuevitas. 

Mr.  Mollenhauer  did  not  remain  long  at 
La  Gloria  at  this  time,  but  established  his 
headquarters  at  Nuevitas,  taking  up  the  work 
that  had  been  in  charge  of  Maj.  P.  S.  Tuni- 
son.  Young  Mr.  Mollenhauer  proved  to  be 
the  right  man  in  the  right  place.  He  was 
active  and  efficient  in  the  performance  of  his 
duties,  and  was  very  much  liked  by  the  colo- 
nists for  his  gentlemanly  bearing,  accommo- 
dating spirit,  and  frank  and  upright  character. 


152  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

The  affairs  of  the  company  and  the  colony 
took  a  new  start  when  he  came  to  Cuba  and 
assumed  charge  of  the  disbursement  of  the 
funds. 

John  A.  Connell  was  a  prosperous  business 
man  of  East  Weymouth,  Mass.,  and  came  to 
La  Gloria  to  make  it  his  permanent  home.  He 
was  one  of  the  most  enthusiastic  and  progres- 
sive of  the  colonists,  and  gave  daily  expression 
to  his  liking  for  Cuba  and  his  firm  faith  in  the 
future  of  La  Gloria.  He  was  a  man  of  prop- 
erty and  of  decided  ability.  Physically,  he  was 
a  giant,  being  six  feet  four  inches  tall,  and 
well  proportioned.  He  was  fond  of  athletics 
and  was  himself  a  good  athlete.  A  man  of 
strong  intelligence,  he  appeared  to  good  ad- 
vantage as  a  speaker.  Mr.  Connell  built  the 
first  frame  building  in  La  Gloria,  a  modest 
board  structure  with  a  roofing  of  tarred  paper, 
and  occupied  it  as  a  general  store.  It  was 
situated  on  Central  avenue  in  the  company's 
reserve.  This  was  not,  however,  the  first 
store  in  La  Gloria.  Besides  the  company's 
commissary,  W.  G.  Spiker  started  a  store  in 
a  tent  several  months  earlier.  George  E. 
Morrison  opened  a  store  in  a  tent  on  Central 
avenue  just  inside  of  the  town  line  at  about 
the  same  time  that  Connell  started,  and  did  a 


Self- Reliance  of  the  Colonists.     153 

good  business  until  he  returned  to  the  States 
several  months  later.  Morrison  had  lived  in 
many  places,  including  Chicago,  111.,  and 
Central  America.  In  practical  affairs  he  was 
one  of  the  most  versatile  men  in  the  colony. 

S.  W.  Storm  of  Nebraska  was  a  veteran 
of  the  Civil  War,  and  a  good  type  of  his 
class.  Cheerful  and  buoyant,  lively  as  a  boy, 
he  entered  into  the  pioneer  life  with  a  hearty 
relish,  as,  indeed,  did  all  of  the  many  old  sol- 
diers who  came  to  La  Gloria.  The  renewal 
of  camp  life  under  agreeable  climatic  condi- 
tions seemed  to  be  a  great  joy  to  them.  Mr. 
Storm  was  never  known  to  complain  of  any- 
thing, not  even  when  he  severely  cut  his  foot 
while  chopping.  He  brought  with  him  to  La 
Gloria  his  young  son  Guy,  who  was  soon 
placed  in  school. 

The  first  school  in  La  Gloria  was  started 
and  taught  by  Mrs.  Whittle  of  Albany,  N.  Y. 
It  occupied  a  large  shelter  tent  on  the  reserve, 
near  Central  avenue.  It  was  fitted  up  with  a 
board  floor,  wooden  benches,  tables,  etc.  The 
school  opened  February  26  with  six  scholars, 
and  though  text-books  were  few  in  number, 
the  pupils  made  good  progress  in  their  studies. 
Mrs.  Whittle  was  an  attractive  and  cultivated 
lady,  and  an  inspiring  and  tactful  teacher. 


154  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

Before  the  middle  of  March  the  school  had 
sixteen  scholars,  and  a  little  later  twenty-one. 
There  was  also  at  the  same  time  an  evening 
school  for  men,  in  which  Mrs.  Whittle  taught 
grammar  and  spelling,  and  Mr.  Max  Neuber 
of  Philadelphia,  a  prominent  colonist,  gave 
lessons  in  Spanish.  Tuition  was  free  in  both 
schools,  which  were  kept  up  until  Mrs.  Whit- 
tle and  Mr.  Neuber  returned  to  the  States  in 
April. 


CHAPTER    XII. 
THE  FIRST  HOLIDAY  IN  LA  GLORIA. 

THE  first  holiday  in  La  Gloria  was  marked 
by  incidents  that  will  be  long  remembered  by 
the  colonists.  The  credit  for  the  inaugura- 
tion of  the  movement  for  such  a  day  belongs 
to  John  A.  Connell,  whose  warm  Irish  blood 
craved  athletic  sport.  Some  of  the  rest  of  us 
were  not  far  behind  him  in  this  particular. 
Mr.  Connell  arranged  a  program  of  running, 
jumping,  wheelbarrow  and  potato  races,  etc., 
and  after  a  conference  of  those  interested,  it 
was  decided  to  ask  the  president  of  the  com- 
pany to  declare  a  general  half-holiday.  I  was 
delegated  to  bring  the  matter  before  Gen- 
eral Van  der  Voort,  who  entered  heartily  into 
the  spirit  of  the  affair  and  readily  granted  our 
request.  Accordingly,  a  formal  proclama- 
tion was  drawn  up^  setting  aside  Saturday 
afternoon,  March  24,  as  a  holiday  throughout 
the  colony.  The  first  draft  was  copied  in  the 
elegant  handwriting  of  Chief  Engineer  Kelly, 
duly  signed  by  President  Van  der  Voort  and 
attested  by  his  secretary,  and  then  conspicu- 


156  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

ously  posted  on  the  flag-staff'  which  graced 
Central  avenue.  Further  preparations  were 
made  for  the  red-letter  day,  and  a  baseball 
game  added  to  the  program.  I  found  in  my 
trunk  a  baseball,  which  I  had  brought  to  Cuba, 
I  know  not  why,  except,  perhaps,  with  the 
American  idea  that  a  baseball  is  always  a 
good  companion.  Simultaneously,  the  inde- 
fatigable J.  L.  Ratekin — one  time  a  soldier  in 
Col.  William  J.  Bryan's  Nebraska  regiment 
in  the  Spanish  War — dragged  out  of  his  kit 
a  good  baseball  bat.  Why  Ratekin  brought 
this  bat  to  Cuba  I  cannot  say,  but  I  half  sus- 
pect that  he  thought  he  might  have  to  use  it 
in  self-defence.  I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  state, 
however,  that  it  was  put  only  to  peaceful  and 
legitimate  uses,  and  killed  nothing  save  "  in- 
shoots"  and  "drops." 

Saturday,  March  24,  was  a  remarkably  fine 
day  even  for  sunny  Cuba.  A  cloudless  sky 
of  beautiful  blue,  a  temperature  of  from  80  to 
90  degrees,  and  a  soft,  refreshing  breeze  com- 
bined to  make  it  ideal  weather  for  La  Gloria's 
initial  holiday.  I  remember  that  several  bicy- 
cles were  brought  out  and  used  on  this  day, 
one  or  two  by  young  women.  The  muddy 
trails  had  dried  up  in  most  places,  so  that 
wheels  could  be  ridden  for  considerable  dis- 


First  Holiday  in  La  Gloria.        157 

tances  on  the  roads  radiating  from  La  Gloria. 
The  dry  season  was  fairly  on  by  March  i, 
and  for  some  time  thereafter  mud  was  practi- 
cally eliminated  from  our  list  of  annoyances. 
At  noon  the  several  surveying  parties 
tramped  in  from  their  distant  work  in  the 
woods,  and  soon  after  the  colonists  began  to 
gather  on  Central  avenue  from  headquarters 
tent  to  Council's  store.  The  women  proved 
that  they  had  not  left  all  their  finery  in  the 
States,  while  nearly  every  child  was  in  its  best 
bib  and  tucker.  The  men  appeared  in  a 
great  variety  of  costumes,  but  most  of  them 
had  given  more  thought  to  comfort  than  to 
elegance.  It  was  at  this  time  that  the  first 
large  group  picture  of  the  colonists  was  taken. 
The  opportunity  was  too  good  to  lose.  We 
were  hastily  grouped  across  Central  avenue, 
and  three  amateur  photographers  simultane- 
ously took  shots  at  us.  The  resulting  photo- 
graph, though  on  a  small  scale,  is  a  faithful 
picture  of  about  half  the  colonists  in  La  Gloria 
on  March  24,  1900.  One  of  the  photogra- 
phers was  Lieut.  Evans  of  the  Eighth  U.  S. 
Cavalry,  who  had  arrived  in  La  Gloria 
the  day  before  in  command  of  a  pack  train 
consisting  of  about  a  dozen  men  and  twenty 
mules.  The  detachment  came  from  the  city 


First  Holiday  in  La  Gloria.       159 

of  Puerto  Principe  and  was  touring  the  coun- 
try for  practice  and  exercise.  It  may  easily 
be  imagined  that  we  were  glad  to  see  them, 
and  they  seemed  equally  glad  to  see  us. 
At  our  earnest  solicitation  they  consented  to 
participate  in  our  holiday  sports. 

The  sports  went  off  well.  There  were 
some  good  athletes  among  the  colonists,  but 
a  soldier  named  T.  Brooks  succeeded  in 
winning  a  majority  of  the  events.  He  was 
a  quiet  little  fellow,  but  his  athletic  prowess 
was  a  credit  to  the  United  States  army.  A 
few  Cubans  took  part  in  the  events,  but  did 
not  distinguish  themselves.  The  chief  at- 
traction of  the  day  was  the  baseball  game, 
which  began  about  the  middle  of  the  after- 
noon. A  diamond  had  been  laid  out  in  a 
large  open  space  just  east  of  Central  avenue, 
and  the  ground  was  remarkably  level  and 
hard.  It  was  a  natural  baseball  field,  and 
with  but  little  work  was  ready  for  use.  The 
greater  part  of  the  colony,  men,  women,  and 
children,  gathered  to  see  the  first  exhibition 
of  the  American  national  game  in  La  Gloria. 
Among  the  spectators  were  President  Van  der 
Voort  and  Chief  Engineer  Kelly.  There 
were  also  a  few  Spaniards  and  many  Cubans 
present.  Few  of  the  latter,  probably,  had 


160  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

ever  before  seen  a  baseball  game,  although 
the  sport  is  a  popular  pastime  among  the 
American  soldiers  encamped  near  Puerto- 
Principe.  This  latter  fact  accounts  for  the 
proficiency  of  the  soldiers  who  came  to  La 
Gloria.  They  formed  one  nine,  and  the  other 
was  made  up  of  colonists.  The  latter  played 
well,  everything  considered,  but  the  superior 
discipline  and  practice  of  Uncle  Sam's  boys 
made  them  the  winners  in  a  close  score.  The 
game  was  umpired  by  M.  T.  Jones  of  Wil- 
liamsport,  Pennsylvania,  one  of  the  colonists 
who  came  on  the  first  Yarmouth  and  the  ca- 
pable assistant  of  Superintendent  Maginniss 
about  the  camp.  The  game  ended  an  hour 
or  two  before  sundown  and  closed  the  outdoor 
sports  of  a  very  successful  and  enjoyable  day. 
But  there  was  one  notable  event  on  that 
first  holiday  not  down  on  the  program,  and 
one  which  few  of  the  colonists  knew  anything 
about  at  the  time  and  of  which  not  many  had 
subsequent  knowledge.  As  I  wended  my 
way  in  the  direction  of  my  tent  near  General 
Van  der  Voort's  house,  under  the  mellow  rays 
of  the  declining  sun,  three  excited  colonists 
intercepted  me.  They  were  Chief  Engineer 
Kelly,  John  A.  Connell,  and  D.  E.  Lowell. 
Drawing  me  aside  from  the  thoroughfare,. 


First  Holiday  in  La  Gloria.        161 


they  hastily  informed  me  that  a  lawyer  by 
the  name  of  C.  Hugo  Drake,  of  Puerto 
Principe,  had  just  come  into  La  Gloria  with 
Lieutenant  Cienfuente,  the  owner  of  the 
Viaro  tract,  with  the  intention  of  dispossess- 
ing the  colonists  of  their  land.  They  had 
ridden  in  on  horseback  from  Puerto  Principe, 
forty-five  miles  away.  Lieutenant  Cienfuente 
was  an  elderly  Spaniard  who  had  been  an 
officer  in  the  Spanish  army,  and  Drake 
claimed  to  have  charge,  in  part,  of  his  busi- 
ness affairs.  We  had  heard  from  Drake 
before,  and  knew  perfectly  well  that  he  had 
induced  the  landholding  Spaniard  to  come 
with  him  to  La  Gloria.  Drake  was  an 
American,  having  come  to  Cuba  from  Mis- 
sissippi just  after  the  war  with  Spain  and  set 
up  as  a  lawyer  and  restaurant  keeper  in 
Puerto  Principe.  He  was  a  young  man  of  a 
prominent  family,  but  was  reputed  to  be 
somewhat  dissipated.  He  has  since  persist- 
ently claimed  that  his  errand  to  La  Gloria 
was  not  to  dispossess  the  colonists,  but  in 
reality  was  in  their  interest.  This  explana- 
tion cannot  be  accepted,  however,  except 
upon  the  hypothesis  that  the  colonists  were 
bound  to  lose  their  lands  under  the  contracts 
which  they  held.  This,  as  the  event  proved, 


1 62  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

was  a  groundless   fear ;  their  holdings  were 
perfectly  secure. 

In  order  to  make  the  situation  clear  to  the 
reader  a  little  explanation  is  necessary.  The 
Viaro  tract,  which  was  the  one  in  question, 
included  about  two  thirds  of  the  town  site 
and  a  little  over  ten  thousand  acres  of  planta- 
tion land  adjoining.  The  greater  part  of  this 
land  had  been  allotted  to  colonists,  but  no 
deeds  had  then  been  given.  The  company 
had  made  a  first  payment  on  the  tract,  and 
was  paying  the  balance  in  instalments. 
One  of  these  instalments  was  overdue  when 
Drake  came  to  La  Gloria  with  Lieutenant 
Cienfuente,  who  had  owned  the  land,  and 
set  up  the  claim  that  the  contract  had  lapsed. 
Lieutenant  Cienfuente  was  willing  to  wait  a 
reasonable  length  of  time  for  his  pay,  but 
had  become  suspicious  that  he  was  not  going 
to  get  it  at  all,  and  hence  was  more  or  less 
under  the  influence  of  Drake,  who  appears  to 
have  been  a  self-appointed  attorney  for  the 
Spaniard.  Drake  had  a  great  scheme, 
which  was  to  make  a  new  contract  directly 
with  the  colonists,  or  newly  chosen  represen- 
tatives, at  an  advanced  price  for  the  tract. 
This  advance  was  to  be  divided  between 
Cienfuente  and  himself,  and  Drake's  share 


First  Holiday  in  La  Gloria.        163 

would  have  amounted  to  $25,000  or  $30,000. 
Of  course,  in  Drake's  scheme,  the  only  alter- 
native for  the  colonists  was  dispossession. 
Yielding  to  the  young  lawyer's  insinuating 
representations,  Lieutenant  Cienfuente  had 
agreed  to  the  plan,  but  he  was  by  no  means 
an  aggressive  factor  in  it.  Meanwhile,  the 
company's  officers  in  New  York  were  con- 
cluding arrangements  to  make  the  overdue 
payment,  which  was  done  a  few  weeks  later. 
With  but  little  hesitation,  Lieutenant  Cien- 
fuente accepted  the  money  from  Messrs. 
Park  and  Mollenhauer,  and  Drake's  little 
scheme  collapsed  like  a  toy  balloon. 

A  part  of  the  above  facts  only  were  known 
to  us  when  Messrs.  Kelly,  Connell,  Lowell, 
and  myself  had  our  hurried  conference  late 
in  the  afternoon  of  our  first  holiday.  Mr. 
Lowell  was  particularly  excited,  and  seri- 
ously disturbed  by  the  apprehension  that  he 
might  have  his  land  taken  away  from  him. 
It  was  quickly  agreed  that  it  was  for  the 
mutual  interest  of  Drake  and  the  colony  that 
he  should  not  be  permitted  to  spend  the  night 
in  La  Gloria.  We  went  over  to  the  house 
of  General  Van  der  Voort,  and  discussed  the 
situation  with  him.  He  mingled  his  indigna- 
tion with  ours,  and  dictated  a  peremptory 


164  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

order  that  Drake  should  leave  the  camp  at 
once.  I  was  commissioned  to  deliver  the 
message,  and  Messrs.  Kelly,  Connell,  and 
Lowell  volunteered  to  accompany  me.  After 
a  little  search  we  found  Drake  near  the  "  old 
senor's"  shack.  He  seemed  to  divine  our 
errand  and  came  forward  to  meet  us,  pale 
and  trembling,  perhaps  from  excitement,  pos- 
sibly from  fear.  Indeed,  we  must  have 
looked  somewhat  formidable  if  not  bellig- 
erent. We  were  all  large  men,  and  Kelly 
was  the  only  one  of  the  four  who  was  not  six 
feet  or  more, in  height.  I  gave  Drake  the 
paper  from  the  general.  Scarcely  glancing 
at  it,  he  said,  apologetically,  in  a  low  tone, 
"It's  all  a  mistake,  gentlemen,  I  meant  no 
harm  to  anybody."  We  assured  him  that  we 
thought  he  would  be  safer  elsewhere  than  in 
La  Gloria.  He  did  not  stop  to  argue  the  mat- 
ter, but  turning  went  directly  to  the  shack  and 
saddled  his  horse.  We  had  intended  to  give 
him  an  hour  ;  he  was  out  of  La  Gloria  in  ten 
minutes.  He  was  obliged  to  spend  the  night 
in  the  dense  woods. 

The  treatment  of  Mr.  Drake  was  not  hos- 
pitable, but  the  colonists  looked  upon  him 
as  an  interloper  whose  machinations  might 
bring  upon  them  a  great  deal  of  trouble.  I 


First  Holiday  in  La  Gloria.        165 

do  not  think  he  had  any  wish  to  injure  the 
colonists,  but  he  certainly  had  an  itching 
palm  for  the  large  stake  which  he  thought  he 
saw  within  his  reach.  I  saw  him  a  week  or 
two  later  in  Puerto  Principe,  and  he  was 
amicable  enough.  He  still  believed  his 
scheme  would  go  through,  but  it  was  not 
long  before  his  hopes  were  dashed.  He  told 
me  he  was  heavily  armed  when  in  La  Gloria, 
and  could  have  "  dropped"  all  four  of  us,  but 
that  he  had  promised  Lieutenant  Cienfuente 
not  to  make  any  trouble.  He  surely  did  not, 
as  it  turned  out.  Mr.  Drake  had  the  manners 
of  a  gentleman,  and  extended  many  courte- 
sies to  me  during  my  stay  in  Puerto  Principe. 
His  resentment  on*  account  of  the  La  Gloria 
episode  was  mainly  directed  toward  General 
Van  der  Voort,  and  he  emphatically  declared 
that  he  had  already  taken  steps  to  summon 
the  general  into  court  for  the  insult. 

Lieutenant  Cienfuente  remained  in  La 
Gloria  as  our  special  guest.  He  was  enter- 
tained at  the  officers'  table,  was  the  guest  of 
honor  at  the  meeting  of  the  Pioneer  Associa- 
tion that  evening,  and  every  effort  was  made 
•to  make  him  feel  at  home.  On  the  following 
Monday  he  left  for  his  home  in  Puerto  Prin- 
cipe in  high  good  humor. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 
INDUSTRY  OF  THE  COLONISTS. 

THE  opening  of  spring  did  not  bring  any 
material  change  in  weather  that  the  colonists 
could  detect,  save  that  the  occasional  rainfall 
had  ceased.  The  temperature  for  March  was 
about  the  same  as  for  January  and  February, 
the  lowest  recorded  by  the  thermometer  being 
53°,  and  the  highest  92°.  The  weather  was 
delightful  and  comfortable.  There  was  more 
blossoming  of  flowers  in  the  woods  and  the 
openings,  and  many  a  big  tree  became  a  ver- 
itable flower  garden,  with  great  clusters  of 
pink  orchids  clinging  to  its  huge  trunk  and 
massive  limbs.  There  were  several  trees  thus 
ornamented  in  close  proximity  to  my  tent. 

The  colonists  were  now  progressing  with 
their  work  and  displaying  the  greatest  indus- 
try. Considerable  clearing  had  been  done, 
and  some  planting.  Gardens  were  growing 
well,  and  the  colonists  were  eating  potatoes, 
beans,  peas,  cucumbers,  tomatoes,  etc.,  of  their 
own  raising.  Many  thousands  of  pineapple 
plants  had  been  set  out,  and  banana  and 


Industry  of  the   Colonists.         167 

orange  trees  were  being  put  into  the  ground 
as  fast  as  they  could  be  obtained.  Many  of 
the  colonists  were  employed  more  or  less  by 
the  company  in  one  capacity  or  another. 
Some  worked  on  the  road,  some  about  the 
camp,  a  few  in  the  gardens,  and  still  others 
in  the  cook-house.  A  number  had  been  em- 
ployed in  the  survey  corps  almost  from  the 
time  of  their  arrival,  while  others  worked  "  off 
and  on,"  according  to  their  convenience  and 
disposition.  The  work  of  the  surveyors  was 
hard  and  exposing,  and  the  fare  usually  poor 
and  meagre,  but  for  all  that  the  men  generally 
liked  the  employment  and  there  was  a  con- 
stant stream  of  applicants  for  vacant  places. 
In  most  cases  the  applicant  knew  what  was 
before  him  and  hence  could  appreciate  the 
grim  humor  of  Chief  Kelly's  unvarying  form- 
ula. After  questioning  the  applicant  to  ascer- 
tain if  he  really  wanted  to  work,  the  chief 
would  say,  facetiously  :  "  All  you  have  to  do 
is  to  follow  a  painted  pole  and  eat  three  meals 
a  day.''  Following  a  "painted  pole"  through 
the  mud,  water,  and  underbrush  of  a  Cuban 
jungle,  especially  with  an  axe  in  one's  hand 
to  wield  constantly,  is  no  sinecure,  but  the 
men  did  not  have  to  work  very  hard  at  their 
meals !  My  admiration  of  the  pluck  and 


Industry  of  the   Colonists.         169 

patience  of  the  "  boys  "  on  the  survey  corps 
was  unbounded,  and,  I  believe,  fully  justified. 
At  their  table  the  chief  had  designated  an  offi- 
cial kicker,  and  no  one  else  was  supposed  to 
utter  a  complaint,  and  it  was  seldom  that  they 
did.  The  discipline  was  like  that  of  an  army. 
When  a  man  was  ordered  to  do  a  thing,  two 
courses  lay  open  to  him  —  do  it  or  quit.  Usu- 
ally the  orders  were  carried  out. 

One  of  the  most  capable  and  industrious  of 
the  colonists  was  B.  F.  Seibert  of  Omaha, 
Nebraska.  He  was  a  man  of  taste  and  refine- 
ment, and  at  the  same  time  eminently  practi- 
cal. He  was  a  veteran  of  the  Civil  War  and 
a  prominent  citizen  in  the  Western  city  whence 
he  came.  He  had  lived  at  one  time  in  Cali- 
fornia, and  there  had  gained  special  knowl- 
edge of  the  cultivation  of  fruits,  flowers,  and 
ornamental  shrubbery.  A  few  days  after  his 
arrival  in  La  Gloria  in  January,  Mr.  Seibert 
was  placed  in  charge  of  the  port,  and  at  once 
set  to  work  to  bring  order  out  of  chaos.  He 
took  care  of  the  large  amount  of  baggage  and 
freight  that  had  been  dumped  in  the  mud  on 
the  shore,  placing  it  under  temporary  shelter, 
and  a  little  later  constructed  an  ample  ware- 
house connecting  with  the  pier.  He  removed 
the  bushes  and  debris  from  the  beach,  thor- 


170  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

oughly  drained  the  locality,  leveled  the  ground, 
cleared  the  accumulated  sea-weed  from  the 
sand  of  the  shore,  extended  and  improved  the 
pier,  and  put  everything  in  first-class  order, 
until  one  of  the  roughest  and  most  forbidding 
of  spots  became  positively  attractive.  I  have 
rarely  seen  so  complete  and  pleasing  a  trans- 
formation. The  Port  La  Gloria  of  to-day  is  a 
delightful  place,  neat  and  well  kept,  swept  by 
balmy  breezes  from  the  sea,  and  commanding 
an  entrancing  view  across  the  vari-colored 
waters  of  the  beautiful  bay  to  the  island  of 
Guajaba,  with  its  picturesque  mountains,  and 
the  other  keys  along  the  coast.  There  is  good 
sea-bathing  here,  and  excellent  fishing  not 
far  away.  A  few  miles  down  the  coast  the 
mouth  of  the  Maximo  river  is  reached,  where 
one  may  shoot  alligators  to  his  heart's  con- 
tent, while  along  the  shore  of  Guajaba  Key 
the  resplendent  flamingo  may  be  brought 
down  by  a  hunter  who  is  clever  enough  to 
get  within  range  of  the  timid  bird.  Assistant 
Chief  Engineer  Neville  was  a  good  flamingo 
hunter,  and  we  occasionally  dined  oft'  the  big 
bird  at  the  officers'  table. 

One  of  the  hardest  workers  in  the  colony 
was  Jason  L.  Ratekin,  who  came  from  Omaha, 
Nebraska.  He  was  a  man  of  marked  indi- 


Industry  of  the  Colonists.         17? 

viduality,  and  though  not  overburdened  with 
capital,  was  fertile  in  resources  and  full  of 
energy  and  determination.  At  first  he  per- 
formed arduous  work  for  the  company  in  the 
transportation  of  baggage  and  freight  from 
the  port  with  the  bullock  team,  and  later  went 
into  business  for  himself  as  a  contractor  for 
the  clearing  and  planting  of  land.  He  was- 
enthusiastic  and  progressive.  Among  all  the 
colonists  there  was  none  more  public-spirited, 
and  he  demonstrated  his  kindness  of  heart  on 
many  occasions.  Once  when  the  bullock 
team  was  bringing  in  a  sick  woman  and  sev- 
eral small  children,  and  the  rough  and  weari- 
some journey  was  prolonged  into  the  darkness 
of  the  night,  he  distinguished  himself  by  car- 
rying the  ten-months-old  baby  nearly  all  the 
way  in  his  arms  and  by  breaking  into  a  con- 
signment of  condensed  milk  to  save  it  from 
starvation.  Ratekin  was  a  rough-looking  fel- 
low, but  a  more  generous  and  kindly  nature 
is  seldom  met  with. 

The  first  banquet  in  La  Gloria  was  held  on 
the  evening  of  March  26,  in  honor  of  the  fifty- 
second  birthday  of  Col.  Thomas  H.  Maginniss,. 
superintendent  of  camp,  who  was  about  to- 
return  to  his  wife  and  eleven  children  in  Phil- 
adelphia. M.  T.  Jones  of  Williamsport,  Pa.,. 


172  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

was  master  of  ceremonies,  and  the  occasion 
was  highly  enjoyable.  The  banquet  was 
served  in  a  tent  restaurant  on  Central  avenue, 
and  the  guests  numbered  about  twenty,  sev- 
eral of  whom  were  ladies.  The  table  pre- 
sented a  very  attractive  appearance,  and  the 
menu  included  salads,  sardines,  salt  beef, 
smoked  herrings,  fresh  fish,  bread,  cake  and 
Jime-o-nade.  Among  the  after-dinner  speak- 
ers were  Colonel  Maginniss,  General  Van  der 
Voort,  S.  N.  Ware  of  Wyoming,  Jesse  B. 
Kimes,  Rev.  Dr.  Gill,  D.  E.  Lowell,  M.  A. 
C.  Neff,  H.  O.  Neville,  John  A.  Connell,  and 
James  M.  Adams.  The  banquet  was  voted  a 
success  by  all  present. 

On  Sunday,  April  i,  Colonel  Maginniss  and 
about  twenty  of  the  colonists  left  La  Gloria 
for  Nuevitas  preparatory  to  sailing  for  the 
States.  This  was  the  largest  number  of  colo- 
nists that  had  departed  at  one  time  since  mid- 
winter, and  their  leaving  caused  some  depres- 
sion throughout  the  colony.  This  was  quick- 
ly over,  however,  and  new  arrivals  soon  made 
up  for  the  numerical  loss.  The  Maginniss 
party  included  M.  T.  Jones  of  Pennsylvania 
and  H.  E.  Mosher  of  New  York  state,  who 
had  been  his  assistants  in  the  work  of  the  camp, 
and  Mrs.  Whittle  of  Albany,  N.  Y.,  and  Max 


Industry  of  the  Colonists.         173. 

Neuber  of  Philadelphia,  Pa.,  who  had  been 
the  teachers  of  the  day  and  evening  schools. 
Mr.  Neuber  and  some  of  the  others  expressed 
the  intention  of  returning  to  La  Gloria  later 
in  the  year. 

The  departure  of  the  score  of  colonists  at 
this  time  was  marked  by  a  most  melancholy 
incident,  which  was  speedily  followed  by  the 
first  death  in  La  Gloria.  John  F.  Maxfield  of 
Providence,  R.  I.,  a  man  past  middle  age, 
who  had  come  to  La  Gloria  on  the  first  Tar- 
mouth  excursion,  had  been  ill  for  several  weeks 
with  a  complication  of  ailments.  Although 
he  had  the  watchful  care  and  companionship 
of  a  friend  from  the  same  city,  Capt.  Joseph 
Chace,  he  became  very  much  depressed 
and  sadly  homesick.  When  the  Maginniss 
party  was  made  up  to  return  to  the  States, 
he  believed  himself  sufficiently  improved 
to  accompany  it,  and  braced  up  wonderfully 
for  the  effort.  When  the  day  arrived,  he  an- 
nounced his  intention  of  walking  to  the  port, 
and  set  out  to  do  so,  but  was  quickly  picked 
up  and  taken  down  in  a  wagon.  At  the  pier 
he  was  overcome  by  exhaustion,  and  exhibited 
so  much  weakness  that  it  was  deemed  unsafe 
to  place  him  on  board  of  either  of  the  small 
and  crowded  sail-boats.  It  was  feared  he 


Pioneering  in  Cuba. 


would  not  survive  the  hardships  and  exposure 
of  the  journey  to  Nuevitas.  The  decision  to 
leave  him  behind,  although  kindly  meant,  was 
a  great  blow  to  him,  and  was  believed  by  some 
to  have  hastened  his  death,  which  took  place 
the  next  morning.  However  this  may  be,  it 
is  improbable  that  he  would  have  lived  to 
reach  his  home  in  the  States.  Heart  failure 
was  the  final  cause  of  his  death.  He  had  good 
care  at  the  port,  but  his  extreme  weakness 
could  not  be  overcome.  Mr.  Maxfield  was  a 
quiet,  unobtrusive  man,  and  was  held  in  high 
esteem  throughout  the  colony.  He  was  buried 
in  a  pleasant  spot  in  the  company's  reserve, 
and  his  funeral  was  attended  by  almost  the 
entire  colony  and  some  of  the  Cubans.  The 
services  were  held  out  of  doors  in  a  beautiful 
glade,  and  were  conducted  by  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Gill.  It  was  a  most  impressive  scene.  This 
was  the  only  death  in  La  Gloria  during  the  six 
months  succeeding  the  arrival  of  the  first  col- 
onists. This  low  rate  of  mortality  was  the 
more  remarkable  from  the  fact  that  a  number 
of  invalids  came  or  were  brought  into  the  col- 
ony during  the  winter.  One  day  there  came 
in  from  the  port  a  wagon  bringing  a  woman 
who  had  been  a  paralytic  for  years,  and  her 
sick  husband,  who  had  been  unable  to  sit  up 


Industry  of  the  Colonists.         175 

for  a  long  time.  They  were  from  Kansas, 
and  were  accompanied  by  grown  children 
and  friends.  The  colonists  expected  there 
would  very  soon  be  two  deaths  in  La  Gloria, 
but  the  sick  man,  who  was  a  mere  skeleton, 
improved  steadily  and  in  a  few  weeks  was  able 
to  walk  about  the  camp,  while  his  paralytic 
wife  was  no  worse  and  was  considered  by  the 
family  to  be  slightly  better.  Considering  that 
the  invalids  were  living  in  tents  without  expert 
care,  the  man's  recovery  was  hardly  less  than 
marvelous. 

On  April  2,  work  on  the  corduroy  road  to 
the  port,  which  had  been  suspended,  was  re- 
sumed under  the  capable  supervision  of  D.  E. 
Lowell.  Mr.  Lowell  proved  to  be  the  best 
roadmaker  who  had  taken  a  hand  at  the 
game  up  to  that  time,  and,  considering  the 
little  he  had  to  do  with,  accomplished  a  great 
deal.  His  workmen  were  from  among  the 
colonists  and  he  rarely  had  more  than  ten  or 
twelve  at  a  time,  and  usually  less,  but  in  five 
or  six  weeks  he  had  done  much  for  the  bet- 
terment of  the  highway.  No  one  realized 
better  than  Mr.  Lowell  that  this  was  only  a 
temporary  road,  but  it  was  the  best  to  be  had 
at  the  time.  Later  in  the  year,  a  fine,  per- 
manent highway  to  the  port  was  begun  by 


176 


Pioneering  in  Cuba. 


Chief  Engineer  Kelly,  and  when  completed 
La  Gloria's  great  drawback  will  be  removed. 

o 

Kelly's  is  a  substantial,  rock-ballasted  road, 
twelve  feet  wide,  and  graded  two  feet  above 
high-water  mark.  It  will  make  La  Gloria 
easy  of  access  from  the  coast. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 
THE  FIRST  BALL  IN  LA  GLORIA. 

MEANWHILE,  the  sale  and  allotment  of 
plantations  and  town  lots  steadily  continued, 
until  on  April  9,  six  months  from  the  day 
the  surveyors  began  their  operations,  about 
twelve  thousand  or  fifteen  thousand  acres  of 
land  had  been  allotted,  besides  nine  hundred 
and  thirty-three  city  lots.  Many  of  the  lots 
had  been  cleared,  and  parts  of  some  of  the 
plantations.  Quite  an  amount  of  planting,  in 
the  aggregate,  had  been  done. 

The  survey  corps  and  the  colonists  agreed 
that  the  semi-anniversary  of  the  coming  of  the 
surveyors  to  La  Gloria  should  be  marked  by 
a  celebration,  and  the  bold  project  of  a  grand 
ball  was  set  on  foot.  When  I  first  heard  of 
it,  I  thought  it  was  a  joke,  but  when  I  saw  a 
long  list  of  committees  conspicuously  posted 
on  Central  avenue,  and  had  been  requested 
by  "Albany"  to  announce  the  coming  event 
at  the  regular  meeting  of  the  Pioneer  Asso- 
ciation, I  realized  that  the  talk  had  been 
serious  and  that  Terpsichore  had  actually 


178  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

gained  a  footing  in  La  Gloria.  I  was  au- 
thorized to  announce  that  the  ball  would  be 
in  charge  of  a  French  dancing  master,  which 
was  the  fact,  for  Floor  Manager  Messier 
("Albany")  was  a  Frenchman  by  birth. 
The  ball  and  the  accompanying  supper  were 
free  to  all,  but  the  women  of  the  colony  had 
been  requested  to  contribute  food — and  most 
nobly  they  responded — while  the  men,  par- 
ticularly the  surveyors,  hustled  for  fruit, 
sugar,  etc.  It  was  a  cheering  sight  when 
big  Jack  McCauley  drove  in  from  Mercedes 
with  the  mule  team,  bringing  a  whole  barrel 
of  oranges.  These  were  some  of  the  oranges 
which  had  been  saved  by  Jack's  "  influence." 
It  was  no  small  task  to  make  the  necessary 
preparations  for  the  ball,  and  some  of  the 
committees  were  kept  very*  busy.  I  was  on 
the  committee  on  music,  and  learned  to  my 
dismay,  a  few  hours  before  the  ball  was  to 
open,  that  Dan  Goodman,  the  fiddler,  had  been 
attacked  by  stage  fright  and  had  declared 
that  if  he  was  to  be  the  whole  orchestra  he 
would  "hang  up  the  fiddle  and  the  bow." 
I  interviewed  Dan, — who  was  just  as  good 
a  fellow  as  his  name  implies, — and  found  that 
he  was  really  suffering  from  Pennsylvania 
modesty.  Accordingly  it  devolved  on  me  to 


First  Ball  in   La  Gloria.  179 

build  up  an  orchestra  with  Dan  as  a  nucleus. 
I  succeeded  beyond  my  expectations.  In  a 
short  time  I  had  secured  the  musical  services 
of  Ed.  Ford,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Spiker,  and  others. 
The  evening  came,  and  like  Jerry  Rusk,  they 
"seen  their  duty  and  done  it."  And  it  may 
further  be  said  that  they  "  done  it "  very  well. 
It  was  decided  to  hold  the  ball  in  a  large 
canvas-covered  structure  which  had  formerly 
been  used  as  a  restaurant  kitchen  and  store- 
house. There  was  only  a  dirt  floor,  and 
hence  the  matter  of  a  temporary  flooring 
became  a  problem.  Boards  were  almost  an 
unknown  luxury  in  La  Gloria  at  that  time, 
but  a  few  were  picked  up  about  the  camp, 
and  the  Rev.  Dr.  Gill  kindly  loaned  the  floor- 
ing of  his  tent  for  the  evening.  Even  then, 
only  so  much  of  the  ballroom  floor  was 
boarded  as  was  actually  used  for  dancing.  It 
is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  ballroom  was 
elaborately  decorated.  High  overhead  were 
fastened  graceful  and  beautiful  palm  leaves, 
a  dozen  feet  or  more  in  length,  and  there 
were  green  wreathes  and  initial  letters  flecked 
with  flowers  and  bright  red  berries.  Men, 
women,  and  children  joined  efforts  to  make 
the  interior  of  the  tent  a  bower  of  tropical 
beauty.  The  effect  was  most  pleasing. 


180  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

Such  decorations  in  the  Northern  states  would 
doubtless  have  cost  a  large  sum  of  money. 
Here  they  cost  only  a  little  time  and  labor. 
I  wish  I  could  say  that  the  ballroom  was 
brilliantly  lighted,  but  the  gas  and  electric 
light  plants  were  as  yet  unplanted,  and  we. 
had  to  depend  on  kerosene  lanterns  sus- 
pended from  the  roof.  However,  as  most  of 
us  had  been  using  only  candles  for  illumina- 
tion, the  lantern  light  seemed  very  good. 
No  one  thought  of  complaining  that  it  was 
dark. 

I  shall  not  be  able  to  describe  the  Grand 
Ball  in  all  its  wondrous  details,  but  only  to 
make  brief  mention  of  a  few  of  the  features 
which  particularly  impressed  me.  I  remem- 
ber that  as  the  people  gathered  together  we 
had  great  difficulty  in  recognizing  each  other. 
We  had  thought  we  were  all  well  acquainted, 
but  that  was  before  the  men  and  women  had 
gone  down  into  the  bottom  of  their  trunks 
and  fished  out  their  good  clothes.  The  trans- 
formation, particularly  in  some  of  the  men, 
was  paralyzing,  and  after  we  had  identified 
the  individuals  inside  of  the  .clothes,  many  of 
us  forgot  our  company  manners  and  opened 
our  mouths  wide  in  astonishment.  Men  who 
had  been  accustomed  to  wear,  seven  days  in 


First  Ball  in   La  Gloria.  181 

each  week,  a  careless  outing  costume,  or  old, 
cheap  clothes  of  cotton  or  woolen  material,  or 
mayhap  nothing  more  than  shirt  and  over- 
alls, had  suddenly  blossomed  out  in  well- 
fitting  black  suits,  set  off  by  cuff's,  high  col- 
lars, and  silk  ties.  It  was  a  dazzling  sight 
for  La  Gloria.  The  men  had  been  very 
negligent  of  their  dress ;  scarcely  one  had 
brought  his  valet  with  him  to  Cuba  !  There 
may  even  have  been  a  few  dress  suits  at  the 
ball,  and  I  will  not  make  oath  that  some  of 
the  women  were  not  in  decollete  gowns ;  to 
'  be  entirely  safe,  however,  I  will  not  swear 
that  they  were.  The  women  looked  very 
well  and  so  did  the  men  ;  all  were  a  credit 
to  an  American  colony. 

Mr.  J.  A.  Messier  ("Albany"),  the  floor 
manager  and  master  of  ceremonies,  was  at- 
tired in  neat  and  conventional  dress,  and  per- 
formed his  duties  gracefully  and  well.  The 
grand  march  was  led  by  General  Van  der 
Voort  and  Mrs.  Dan  Goodman,  followed  by 
Chief  Engineer  Kelly  with  a  daughter  of 
Senor  Rivas.  I  do  not  find  among  my  posses- 
sions a  dance  order,  and  hence  can  give  no 
description  of  it ;  and  I  apprehend  that  the 
others  present  would  have  no  better  success. 
But  there  was  dancing,  and  a  lot  of  it. 


First  Ball  in  La  Gloria.  183 

Furthermore,  it  was  much  enjoyed,  both  by 
the  participants  and  the  spectators.  About 
the  middle  of  the  evening  some  specialties 
were  introduced.  Chief  Engineer  Kelly  per- 
formed a  clog  dance  successfully,  turning  a 
handspring  at  the  end,  and  Architect  NefF 
executed  an  eccentric  French  dance  with  a 
skill  and  activity  that  brought  down  the 
house.  There  was  also  good  clog  dancing 
by  some  of  the  younger  men. 

The  ball  was  attended  by  nearly  the  entire 
colony.  This  was  made  manifest  when  we 
lined  up  for  supper,  which  was  served  across 
the  street.  The  procession  to  the  tables 
numbered  one  hundred  and  forty  persons  by 
actual  count.  The  tables  were  set  under 
shelter  tents,  and  were  beautifully  decorated 
and  loaded  with  food.  There  were  meats, 
fish,  salads,  puddings,  cakes,  and  a  wonder- 
ful variety  of  pies,  in  which  the  guava  was 
conspicuous.  Coffee  and  fruits  were  also 
much  in  evidence.  Never  before  had  La 
Gloria  seen  such  a  spread.  On  this  occasion 
the  women  of  the  colony  achieved  a  well- 
merited  reputation  for  culinary  skill  and  re- 
sourcefulness. Except  for  a  few  enthusiasts, 
who  went  back  to  the  ballroom  for  more 
dancing,  the  supper  wound  up  the  evening's 


184  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

festivities.  The  semi-anniversary  had  been 
properly  celebrated,  and  the  first  ball  in  La 
Gloria  had  proved  successful  beyond  antici- 
pation. April  9,  1900,  may  be  set  down  as 
a  red  letter  day  in  the  history  of  the  colony. 
Speaking  of  the  ball  and  its  orchestra  calls 
to  mind  the  music  in  the  camp  in  the  early 
days  of  the  colony.  There  was  not  much. 
Occasionally  a  violin  was  heard  ;  and  more 
often,  perhaps,  a  guitar  or  mandolin.  But 
the  most  persistent  musician  was  a  cornet 
player,  who  for  a  time  was  heard  regularly 
every  night  from  one  end  of  the  camp.  His 
wind  was  good,  but  his  repertoire  small.  He 
knew  "Home,  Sweet  ^Home "  from  attic  to 
cellar,  and  his  chief  object  in  life  seemed  to 
be  to  make  others  as  familiar  with  it  as  him- 
self. He  played  little  else,  and  the  melting 
notes  of  John  Howard  Payne's  masterpiece 
floated  through  the  quiet  camp  hour  after 
hour,  night  after  night.  Finally,  the  colo- 
nists visited  him  and  told  him  gently  but 
firmly  that  he  must  stop  playing  that  piece  so 
much ;  it  was  making  them  all  homesick. 
Not  long  after  the  cornet  player  disappeared. 
I  think  there  was  no  foul  play.  Probably  he 
had  simply  betaken  himself  to  home,  sweet 
home. 


First  Ball  in   La  Gloria.  185 

There  were  many  good  singers  in  camp. 
Some  of  them  met  regularly  once  or  twice  a 
week  and  sang  gospel  hymns.  These  formed 
the  choir  at  the  Sunday  services.  There  was 
another  group  of  vocalists,  equally  excellent 
in  its  way,  which  confined  itself  to  rendering 
popular  songs.  Some  of  the  latter,  who 
dwelt  and  had  their  "sings"  near  my  tent, 
would  have  done  credit  to  the  vaudeville 
stage.  They  were  known  as  the  "Kansas 
crowd."  It  gave  me,  a  native  of  the  Granite 
state,  great  satisfaction  to  hear  these  Kansas 
people  singing  with  spirit  and  good  expres- 
sion "My  Old  New  Hampshire  Home."  I 
was  pleased  to  regard  it  as  a  Western  tribute 
to  New  Hampshire  as  the  place  of  the  ideal 
home. 


CHAPTER   XV. 
A  WALKING  TRIP  TO  PUERTO  PRINCIPE. 

IT  was  on  the  day  after  the  Grand  Ball, 
Tuesday,  April  10,  that  a  party  of  us  started 
on  a  walking  trip  to  the  city  of  Puerto  Principe, 
forty-five  miles  away.  My  companions,  who, 
like  myself,  were  all  colonists,  were  Jeff  D. 
Franklin  of  Florida,  David  Murphy  of  New 
Jersey,  A.  H.  Carpenter  of  Massachusetts, 
and  a  Mr.  Crosby  of  Tennessee.  Mr.  Crosby 
was  a  man  of  middle  age  ;  the  rest  of  us  were 
younger,  Carpenter  being  a  mere  youth  of 
perhaps  eighteen.  All  were  good  walkers. 
The  start  was  made  at  about  8  : 30  in  the 
morning.  The  day  was  pleasant  and  balmy, 
but  not  excessively  warm.  The  trail  was 
now  in  good  condition,  and  the  walking 
would  have  been  altogether  agreeable  had  it 
not  been  for  the  packs  upon  our  shoulders. 
We  carried  hammocks,  blankets,  and  such 
food  as  bread,  crackers,  sardines,  bacon,  and 
coffee.  One  of  the  party  had  a  frying-pan 
slung  across  his  back.  Our  loads  were  not 


A  Walking  Trip.  187 

actually  heavy,  but  they  seemed  so  after  we 
had  walked  a  few  miles. 

Our  course  lay  to  the  southwest,  through 
the  deserted  plantation  of  Mercedes,  where 
we  stopped  an  hour  to  eat  oranges  and  chat 
with  the  colonists  at  work  there.  Resuming 
our  march,  we  soon  passed  an  inhabited 
Cuban  shack  near  an  abandoned  sugar  mill, 
stopping  a  few  minutes  to  investigate  a  small 
banana  patch  near  the  road.  We  had  been 
here  before  and  knew  the  owner.  A  mile 
further  on  we  reached  another  occupied  shack, 
and  called  to  get  a  drink  of  agua  (water). 
We  were  hospitably  received  in  the  open 
front  of  the  casa  (house)  and  given  heavy, 
straight-backed,  leather-bottomed  chairs  of 
an  antique  pattern.  The  agua  furnished  was 
rain  water  which  had  been  stored  in  a  cistern, 
and  had  at  least  the  virtue  of  being  wet. 
There  were  at  home  an  old  man,  a  very 
fleshy  elderly  woman,  and  two  rather  good- 
looking  girls,  the  appearance  and  dress  of  one 
of  whom  indicated  that  she  was  a  visitor. 
This  was  about  the  only  shack  we  saw  where 
there  were  no  young  children  in  evidence. 
We  tarried  but  a  few  minutes.  After  making 
inquiries  about  the  road,  as  we  did  at  almost 
every  house,  we  continued  on  our  way. 


1 88  Pioneering-  in  Cuba. 

For  the  next  three  or  four  miles  we  had  a 
good  hard  trail  through  the  woods,  but  saw 
neither  habitation  nor  opening.  Shortly  after 
noon  we  emerged  from  the  woods  into  an 
open  space,  where,  on  slightly  elevated 
ground,  stood  two  shacks.  We  had  been  here 
before  and  knew  the  man  who  occupied  one 
of  them.  There  was  no  land  under  cultiva- 
tion in  sight,  and  the  only  fruit  a  custard 
apple  tree  and  a  few  mangoes.  There  were 
a  good  many  pigs  roaming  about,  and  the 
shack  we  entered  contained  several  small 
children.  Our  Cuban  friend  seemed  glad  to 
see  us ;  his  wife  brought  us  water  to  drink, 
and  we  were  invited  to  sit  down.  Our  social 
call  would  have  been  more  satisfactory  if  we 
had  known  more  Spanish,  or  our  host  had 
spoken  English.  We  made  but  a  brief  stay, 
and  on  departing  asked  the  Cuban  to  point 
out  to  us  the  road  to  Puerto  Principe.  Since 
leaving  the  woods  we  had  seen  no  road  or 
trail  of  any  sort.  He  took  us  around  his 
house  and  accompanied  us  for  some  distance, 
finally  pointing  out  an  indistinct  trail  across 
high  savanna  land  which  he  said  was  the 
right  one.  This  path,  which  could  hardly  be 
seen,  was  the  "road"  from  the  coast  to  the 
third  largest  city  in  Cuba,  only  about  thirty 


A  Walking  Trip.  189 

miles  away !  Such  are  Cuban  roads.  At 
times  you  can  only  guess  whether  you  are  in 
a  road  or  out  of  it. 

What  lay  before  us  was  now  entirely  unfa- 
miliar. At  about  one  o'clock  we  halted  by 
the  side  of  the  trail  for  a  midday  rest  and 
lunch.  We  were  a  dozen  miles  from  La 
Gloria,  and  about  an  equal  distance  from  the 
Cubitas  mountains,  through  which  we  were 
to  pass.  An  hour  later  we  took  up  the  march 
again.  We  soon  entered  the  woods  and 
found  a  smooth,  firm  trail  over  the  red  earth. 
We  passed  through  miles  of  timber,  of  a  fine, 
straight  growth.  In  the  thick  woods  but  few 
royal  palms  were  seen,  but  in  the  more  open 
country  we  saw  some  magnificent  groves  of 
them.  During  the  afternoon  we  passed  only 
two  or  three  shacks,  but  as  we  approached 
the  Cubitas  mountains  the  few  habitations  and 
their  surroundings  improved  in  character. 
The  houses  continued  to  be  palm-thatched, 
but  they  were  more  commodious  and  sur- 
rounded by  gardens  in  which  were  a  few 
orange  and  banana  trees,  and  other  fruits  and 
vegetables.  Some  of  the  places  were  quite 
pretty.  Occasionally  we  would  see  cleared 
land  that  had  once  been  cultivated,  but  no 
growing  crops  of  any  amount.  This  part  of 


190  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

the  country  had  been  agriculturally  dead 
since  the  Ten  Years'  War.  How  the  natives 
live,  I  know  not,  but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  they 
do  not  live  well.  They  raise  boniatos  and 
cassava,  a  little  fruit,  and  keep  a  few  pigs. 
Often  their  chief  supply  of  meat  is  derived 
from  the  wild  hogs  which  they  shoot.  And 
yet  these  Cubans  were  living  on  some  of  the 
best  land  in  the  world. 

Late  in  the  afternoon,  after  walking  for  a 
mile  or  more  along  a  good  road  bordered  by 
.the  ornamental  but  worthless  jack-pineapple 
plant,  we  came  to  a  wide  gateway  opening 
into  an  avenue  lined  with  cocoanut  palms  and 
leading  up  to  a  couple  of  well-made  Cuban 
shacks.  The  houses  stood  at  the  front  of 
quite  a  large  garden  of  fruit  trees.  We  called 
at  one  of  the  shacks,  which  proved  to  be  well 
populated.  An  elderly  man,  large  for  a 
Cuban  and  well-built,  came  forward  to  greet 
us  and  was  inclined  to  be  sociable.  His  shirt 
appeared  to  be  in  the  wash,  but  this  fact  did 
not  seem  to  embarrass  him  any ;  he  still  had 
his  trousers.  Of  a  younger  man  we  bought 
a  few  pounds  of  boniatos  (sweet  potatoes) 
and  after  some  urging  persuaded  him  to  go 
out  and  get  some  green  cocoanuts  for  us  from 
the  trees.  He  sent  his  little  boy  of  about 


A  Walking  Trip.  191 

twelve  years  of  age  up  the  tree  to  hack  off  a 
bunch  of  the  nuts  with  his  machete.  We 
drank  the  copious  supply  of  milk  with  great 
satisfaction  ;  there  is  no  more  refreshing  drink 
in  all  Cuba.  As  the  boy  had  done  all  the 
work,  we  designedly  withheld  our  silver  until 
he  had  come  down  the  tree  and  we  could 
place  it  in  his  hands.  We  wondered  if  he 
would  be  allowed  to  keep  it.  Climbing  the 
smooth  trunk  of  a  cocoanut  tree  is  no  easy 
task. 

We  camped  that  night  among  the  trees  by 
the  side  of  the  road  a  quarter  of  a  mile  further 
on.  We  had  made  twenty  miles  for  the  day, 
and  were  now  on  high  ground  near  the  base 
of  the  Cubitas  mountains.  The  rise  had  been 
so  very  gradual  that  we  had  not  noticed  that 
we  were  ascending.  The  trunks  of  all  the 
trees  around  us  were  stained  for  a  short  dis- 
tance from  the  ground  with  the  red  of  the  soil, 
caused,  as  we  believed,  by  the  wild  hogs  rub- 
bing up  against  them.  Our  supper  of  fried 
boniatos  and  bacon  was  skilfully  cooked  by 
Jeff"  Franklin,  who  used  the  hollow  trunk  of  a 
royal  palm,  which  had  fallen  and  been  split, 
for  an  oven.  For  drink  we  had  cocoanut 
milk.  By  the  vigorous  use  of  Dave  Murphy's 
machete  we  cleared  away  the  underbrush  so 


192  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

that  we  could  swing  our  hammocks  among 
the  small  trees.  Franklin  had  no  hammock, 
but  slept  under  a  blanket  on  a  rubber  coat 
spread  on  the  ground.  The  night  was  com- 
fortably warm  and  brilliantly  clear.  It  was 
delightful  to  lie  in  our  hammocks  and  gaze  up 
through  the  trees  at  the  beautiful  star-lit  sky. 
There  were  mosquitoes,  of  course,  but  they 
did  not  trouble  us  much,  and  we  all  slept 
well. 

We  were  up  early  the  next  morning,  a  per- 
fect day,  and  after  eating  a  substantial  break- 
fast proceeded  on  our  journey.  We  felt  little 
exhaustion  from  the  long  walk  of  the  preced- 
ing day,  but  I  was  a  sad  cripple  from  sore 
feet.  I  had  on  a  pair  of  Cuban  shoes  which 
were  a  little  too  short  for  me  (although  they 
were  No.  40)  and  my  toes  were  fearfully 
blistered  and  bruised.  There  was  nothing  to 
do,  however,  but  go  forward  as  best  I  could, 
so  I  limped  painfully  along  behind  my  com- 
panions, keenly  conscious  that  Josh  Billings 
was  a  true  philosopher  when  he  said  that 
"tite  boots"  made  a  man  forget  all  his  other 
troubles. 

A  fraction  of  a  mile  beyond  our  camping 
place  we  discovered  a  well-kept  shack 
ensconced  in  cosy  grounds  amid  palms,  fruit 


A  Walking  Trip.  193 

trees,  and  flowering  shrubs.  It  was  one  of 
the  prettiest  scenes  we  saw.  We  called  for 
water,  politely  greeted  the  woman  who  served 
iis  with  our  best  pronunciation  of  "  buenos 
dias,"  and,  murmuring  our  "  gracias,"  went 
our  way  with  some  regrets  at  leaving  so 
pleasant  a  spot.  A  mile  or  two  further  on  we 
came  to  a  distinct  fork  in  the  road.  One  way 
lay  nearly  straight  ahead,  the  other  bore  off 
to  the  right.  While  we  were  debating  which 
trail  to  take,  a  horseman  fortunately  came 
along,  the  first  person  we  had  seen  on  the 
road  that  day  and  the  second  since  leaving 
Mercedes  on  the  preceding  forenoon.  He 
told  us  to  go  to  the  right,  and  we  were  soon 
in  the  foothills  of  the  mountains. 

It  was  here  that  we  found  a  deserted  shack 
behind  which  was  a  cleared  space  in  the 
woods  of  several  acres.  On  this  little  plan- 
tation grew  bananas,  cocoanuts,  cassava,  boni- 
atos,  and  other  vegetables.  As  it  was  in  the 
Cubitas  mountains  near  this  spot  that  the 
Cuban  insurrectionists  had  what  they  called 
their  independent  civil  government  for  some 
time  prior  to  the  intervention  of  the  United 
States,  and  secreted  their  cattle  and  raised 
fruit  and  vegetables  to  supply  food  for  the 
"  Army  of  Liberation,"  we  guessed  that  this 
13 


194  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

might  be  one  of  the  places  then  put  under 
cultivation.  It  certainly  had  had  very  little 
recent  care. 

After  journeying  past  some  chalk-white 
cliffs,  which  we  examined  with  interest,  we 
entered  the  mountain  pass  which  we  supposed 
would  take  us  through  the  town  or  village  of 
Cubitas,  the  one-time  Cuban  capital.  The 
way  was  somewhat  rough  and  rugged,  but 
not  very  steep.  The  mountains  were  covered 
with  trees  and  we  had  no  extended  view  in 
any  direction.  All  at  once,  at  about  10:30 
a.  m.,  we  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  emerged 
from  the  pass,  when  the  shut-in  forest  view 
changed  to  a  broad  and  sweeping  prospect 
into  the  interior  of  Cuba.  What  we  looked 
down  upon  was  an  immense  savanna,  stretch- 
ing twenty  miles  to  the  front,  and  perhaps 
more  on  either  hand,  broken  in  the  distance 
on  all  sides  by  hills  and  lofty  mountains.  It 
was  a  beautiful  sight,  particularly  for  us  who 
had  been  shut  in  by  the  forest  most  of  the 
time  for  months.  The  savanna  was  dry,  but 
in  places  showed  bright  green  stretches  that 
were  restful  to  the  eye.  It  was  dotted  with 
thousands  of  small  palm  trees,  which  were 
highly  ornamental.  We  could  not  see  Puerto 
Principe,  nor  did  we  catch  sight  of  it  until 


A  Walking  Trip.  195 

within  three  miles  of  the  city.  There  was  no 
town  or  village  in  sight,  and  not  even  a 
shack,  occupied  or  unoccupied.  The  view 
embraced  one  vast  plain,  formerly  used  for 
grazing  purposes,  but  now  wholly  neglected 
and  deserted.  We  did  not  then  know  that 
we  were  to  walk  seventeen  miles  across  this 
savanna  before  seeing  a  single  habitation  of 
any  sort. 

We  had  seen  nothing  of  the  village  of 
Cubitas,  and  concluded  that  we  had  taken 
the  wrong  pass.  We  were  afterwards  told 
that  Cubitas  consisted  of  a  single  shack  which 
had  been  used  as  a  canteen.  Whether  the 
Cuban  government  occupied  this  canteen,  or 
one  of  the  caves  which  are  said  to  exist  in 
these  mountains,  I  cannot  say.  The  revolu- 
tionary government,  being  always  a  movable 
affair,  was  never  easy  to  locate.  It  was, 
however,  secure  from  harm  in  these  moun- 
tains. We  noticed  later  that  the  natives 
seemed  to  regard  all  the  scattered  houses 
within  a  radius  of  half  a  dozen  miles  from 
this  part  of  the  mountains  as  forming  Cubitas. 
The  post-office  must  have  been  up  a  tree. 

After  a  brief  rest  on  the  south  slope  of  the 
mountains,  we  resumed  our  march,  a  weari- 
some one  for  all  of  us  and  exceedingly  pain- 


196  Pioneering  in   Cuba. 

fill  to  me  with  my  disabled  feet.  They 
seemed  even  sorer  after  a  halt.  My  ankles 
were  now  very  lame  from  unnaturally  favor- 
ing my  pinched  toes.  The  midday  sun  was 
hot,  and  we  suffered  a  good  deal  from  thirst. 
There  were  no  longer  any  houses  where  we 
could  procure  water.  We  had  not  seen  a 
stream  of  any  sort  in  the  last  twenty  miles. 
I  staggered  along  as  best  I  could,  a  straggler 
behind  my  companions.  A  little  after  noon 
we  came  suddenly  upon  two  or  three  little 
water  holes  directly  in  our  path.  It  seemed 
like  an  oasis  in  the  desert.  We  could  not 
see  where  the  water  came  from  nor  where  it 
went,  but  it  was  clear  and  good,  and  we  were 
duly  thankful.  We  ate  dinner  here  under  a 
small  palm  tree,  and  enjoyed  a  siesta  for  an 
hour. 

In  the  afternoon  we  met  only  one  person, 
a  Cuban  produce  pedler  on  horseback.  He 
treated  those  who  cared  for  liquor  out  of  a 
big  black  bottle.  That  afternoon's  tramp  will 
linger  long  in  our  memories.  I  thought  we 
should  never  get  across  that  seemingly  end- 
less savanna.  At  last,  when  it  was  near  six 
o'clock,  we  reached  an  old  deserted  open 
shack  which  stood  on  the  plain  not  far  from 
the  trail.  Here  we  spent  the  night,  cooking 


A   Walking  Trip.  197 

our  supper  and  procuring  in  a  near-by  well 
tolerably  good  water,  notwithstanding  the 
dirty  scum  on  top  of  it.  We  were  within 
four  miles  of  Puerto  Principe,  and  my  ears 
were  delighted  that  evening  with  a  sound 
which  I  had  not  heard  in  more  than  three 
months — the  whistle  of  a  locomotive.  Our 
night  was  .somewhat  disturbed  by  rats,  fleas, 
and  mosquitoes,  but  we  were  too  tired  not  to 
sleep  a  good  part  of  it.  The  breeze  across 
the  savanna  was  gentle  and  soothing. 

The  next  morning  we  walked  into  the 
time-scarred  city  of  Puerto  Principe — that  is, 
the  others  walked  and  I  hobbled.  If  pos- 
sible, my  feet  were  worse  than  ever.  In 
the  outskirts,  our  party  divided,  Franklin, 
Murphy,  and  Carpenter  branching  off  to  the 
left  to  go  to  the  camp  of  the  Eighth  U.  S. 
Cavalry  two  miles  east  of  the  city  near  the 
railroad  track,  and  Crosby  and  I  going  di- 
rectly into  the  heart  of  the  towrn  in  search  of 
a  hotel.  We  had  a  long  walk  through  the 
narrow  and  roughly  paved  streets  before  we 
found  one.  There  is  no  denying  that  we 
were  a  tough-looking  pair  of  tramps.  We 
were  unshaven  and  none  too  clean.  Our 
clothes  were  worn  and  frayed,  and  soiled 
with  mud  and  dust.  We  were  bent  with  the 


198  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

packs  upon  our  shoulders,  and  walked  with 
very  pronounced  limps.  Everywhere  we 
were  recognized  as  "Americanos,"  although 
it  seemed  to  me  we  looked  more  like  Italian 
organ-grinders.  To  the  day  of  my  death  I 
shall  never  cease  to  be  grateful  to  the  people 
of  Puerto  Principe  for  the  admirable  courtesy 
and  good  manners  exhibited  to  us.  They 
did  not  stone  nor  jeer  us  ;  they  did  not  even 
openly  stare  at  the  odd  spectacle  we  pre- 
sented. Even  the  children  did  not  laugh  at 
us,  and  the  dogs  kindly  refrained  from  bark- 
ing at  our  heels.  At  all  times  during  our 
stay  of  several  days  we  were  treated  with 
perfect  courtesy  and  a  respectful  considera- 
tion which  our  personal  appearance  scarcely 
warranted  and  certainly  did  not  invite.  The 
Spaniards  and  Cubans  seem  to  associate  even 
the  roughest  dressed  American  with  money 
and  good-nature.  The  humbler  children 
would  gather  about  us,  pleading,  "  Ameri- 
cano, gimme  a  centavo  ! "  while  little  tots 
of  four  years  would  say  in  good  English 
and  the  sweetest  of  voices,  "  Good-by,  my 
frien'  !  "  It  was  the  soldiers  who  had  taught 
them  this.  Their  parents  rarely  spoke  any 
English  whatever. 

We  stayed  at  the  Gran  Hotel,  said  by  some 


A  Walking  Trip.  199 

to  be  the  best  in  the  city.  It  was  none  too 
good,  but  not  bad  as  Cuban  hotels  run.  The 
terms  were  moderate,  $1.50  per  day,  for  two 
meals  and  lodging.  A  third  meal  could  not 
be  obtained  for  love  nor  money.  I  bought 
mine  at  street  stands  or  in  a  cafe.  Not  a 
word  of  English  was  spoken  at  this  hotel. 

I  cannot  describe  Puerto  Principe  at  any 
length.  It  is  an  old  Spanish  city  in  architec- 
ture and  customs,  and  might  well  have  been 
transplanted  from  mediaeval  Spain.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  was  moved  here  centuries 
ago  from  the  north  coast  of  Cuba,  near  the 
present  site  of  Nuevitas,  the  change  being 
made  to  escape  the  incursions  of  pirates.  It 
has  a  population  of  about  forty-seven  thou- 
sand, and  is  the  third  largest  city  in  Cuba, 
and  the  most  populous  inland  town.  Many 
of  the  residents  are  wealthy  and  aristocratic, 
and  the  people,  generally  speaking,  are  fine 
looking  and  very  well  dressed.  I  several 
times  visited  the  chief  plaza,  which  had 
lately  taken  the  new  name  of  Agramonte, 
and  watched  with  interest  the  handsome 
men  and  beautiful  senoritas  who  promenaded 
there.  I  was  told  that  late  in  the  afternoon 
and  early  in  the  evening  the  young  people  of 
the  best  families  in  the  city  walked  in  the 


A  Walking  Trip.  201 

plaza.  They  were  certainly  elegantly  dressed' 
and  most  decorous  in  behavior.  The  plaza 
was  very  pretty  with  its  royal  palms  and 
ornamental  flower  beds.  It  was  flanked  by 
one  of  the  several  ancient  Catholic  churches 
in  the  city.  While  in  Puerto  Principe  I  was 
in  receipt  of  unexpected  courtesies  from  Mr. 
C.  Hugo  Drake,  the  American  lawyer  al- 
luded to  in  an  earlier  chapter  of  this  book. 

After  spending  four  delightful  days  in 
Puerto  Principe,  I  took  the  train  to  Las 
Minas,  twenty  miles  to  the  eastward.  There 
I  joined  my  companions,  who  had  preceded 
me  by  twenty-four  hours.  Here  we  boarded 
th'e  private  cane  train  of  Bernabe  Sanchez 
and  rode  to  Senor  Sanchez'  great  sugar  mill 
at  Senado,  six  miles  away.  Senor  Sanchez 
has  a  pleasant  residence  here,  surrounded  by 
fruit  trees  and  shrubs.  We  saw  ripe  straw- 
berries growing  in  his  garden.  Scores  of 
Cuban  shacks  in  the  vicinity  house  his  work- 
men and  their  families.  We  went  all  over 
his  immense,  well-appointed  sugar  mill,  then 
in  operation,  and  in  the  early  afternoon  rode 
on  the  flat  cars  of  the  cane  train  through  his 
extensive  plantation  for  nine  miles,  the  land  on 
either  side  of  the  track  for  all  this  distance 
being  utilized  for  the  growing  of  sugar  cane- 


2O2  Pioneering  in   Cuba. 

The  end  of  the  track  left  us  about  eighteen 
miles  from  La  Gloria.  We  set  out  to  walk 
home,  but  late  in  the  afternoon  the  party 
accidentally  divided  and  both  divisions  got 
lost.  Murphy  and  I  spent  an  uncomfortable 
night  in  the  thick,  damp  woods,  and  taking 
up  the  tramp  early  the  next  morning,  found 
ourselves,  two  or  three  hours  later,  at  the 
exact  point  near  the  end  of  Sanchez'  planta- 
tion where  we  had  begun  our  walk  the  after- 
noon before.  We  had  walked  about  fifteen 
miles  and  got  back  to  our  starting  point  with- 
out realizing  that  we  had  deviated  from  the 
main  trail.  Stranger  yet,  the  other  division 
of  the  party  had  done  exactly  the  same  thing, 
but  had  reached  this  spot  late  the  night  before 
and  was  now  half  way  to  La  Gloria. 

Murphy  and  I  made  a  new  start,  and  after 
getting  off  the  track  once  or  twice,  finally 
reached  the  Maximo  river,  crossed  it  on  a 
tree,  and  got  into  La  Gloria  at  5  : 30  that 
afternoon,  nearly  worn  out  and  looking  like 
wild  men.  I  had  had  nothing  to  eat  for  forty- 
eight  hours  save  two  cookies,  one  cracker, 
and  half  a  sweet  potato. 


CHAPTER   XVI. 
IN  AND  AROUND  LA  GLORIA. 

A  VERY  good  Book  that  I  wot  of  contains 
an  Apocrypha.  This  will  have  no  Apocry- 
pha, but  I  will  here  relate  an  incident  which 
did  not  come  under  my  personal  observation, 
but  which  was  told  of  by  my  ordinarily  vera- 
cious friend,  Colonel  Maginniss.  At  one 
time  during  the  winter,  Colonel  Maginniss 
and  his  assistants  had  for  three  days  been 
searching  for  a  company  horse  that  was  lost, 
when  a  man  named  Ramsden  came  to  the 
colonel's  tent  and  reported  that  there  was  a 
horse  hanging  in  the  woods  not  far  away. 
The  colonel  and  Mr.  Jones  went  to  the  spot 
and  found  a  large  white  horse,  that  had 
weighed  twelve  hundred  pounds,  dead  in  the 
thicket,  hanging  by  the  neck.  No  formal 
inquest  was  held,  but  it  was  the  colonel's 
theory  that  this  American-born  horse  could 
not  live  on  Cuban  grass,  and  had  deliberately 
hanged  himself.  A  somewhat  similar  case  I 
was  personally  cognizant  of.  A  sick  horse 
was  reported  drowning  in  a  shallow  pond 


204  Pioneering  in   Cuba. 

near  the  camp.  Colonel  Maginniss  went  to 
the  scene  on  a  Cuban  pony,  with  a  dozen 
colonists,  and  after  a  hard  struggle  the  horse 
was  dragged  one  hundred  yards  away  from 
the  mud  and  water,  and  left  on  dry  land. 
Early  the  next  morning  it  was  discovered 
that  the  horse  had  worked  his  way  back  into 
the  pond  and  drowned  himself.  Was  this  a 
case  of  animal  suicide?  It  may  be  said  that 
none  of  the  colonists  ever  resorted  to  this 
desperate  expedient,  even  when  the  sugar 
gave  out. 

Colonel  Maginniss  was  "  a  master  hand  in 
sickness."  An  English  woman  who  came  to 
the  colony  was  very  ill,  and  blood  poisoning 
set  in.  The  colonel's  experience  as  a  family 
man  was  now  of  service.  He  had  the  woman 
removed  to  a  large  tent,  attended  her  per- 
sonally and  looked  after  the  children,  calling 
four  or  five  times  daily,  and  administering 
such  remedies  as  he  had.  The  woman  re- 
covered, and  gratefully  expressed  the  belief 
that  the  colonel  had  saved  her  life. 

Near  the  end  of  April  there  was  a  sudden 
and  surprising  rise  of  water  along  Central 
avenue  between  La  Gloria  and  the  port.  One 
afternoon  Mr.  Lowell  and  his  men  at  work 
upon  the  road  noticed  that  the  water  was  ris- 


In  and  Around  La  Gloria.        205 

ing  in  the  creeks  and  ditches  along  the  way. 
This  was  a  surprising  discovery,  inasmuch  as 
there  had  been  no 'rain  of  any  account.  The 
water  continued  to  rise  rapidly,  and  when  the 
men  left  off  work  late  in  the  afternoon  it  was 
several  feet  higher  than  it  had  been  at  noon. 
It  came  up  steadily  through  the  night,  so  that 
pedestrians  to  the  port  the  next  morning 
found  the  water  even  with  the  new  road  all 
along  and  over  it  where  the  creeks  came  in. 
Further  down  toward  the  port,  the  savanna 
was  flooded  in  places  to  a  depth  of  one  or  two 
feet.  Among  the  pedestrians  that  morning 
were  several  colonists  who  were  on  their  way 
home  to  the  States,  and  who,  singularly 
enough,  were  obliged  to  walk,  out  of  La 
Gloria  through  mud  and  water  very  much  as 
they  had  walked  in  several  months  before, 
although  between  the  two  periods  there  had 
been  for  a  long  time  a  good  dry  road.- 

It  was  that  morning  that  we,  in  the  camp, 
heard  a  peculiar  rushing  sound  which  we  at 
first  mistook  for  water  sweeping  through  the 
woods.  On  going  down  the  road  to  investi- 
gate, however,  we  found  that  the  noise  was 
the  deafening  chorus  of  millions  of  little  frogs 
— some  contended  that  they  were  tree  toads — 
which  had  come  in  with  the  flood  or  with  the 


2o6  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

rain  which  fell  in  the  night.  Never  before 
had  I  seen  such  a  sight.  The  frogs  were 
everywhere,  on  logs,  stumps,  in  the  water, 
and  along  the  road ;  bits  of  earth  jutting  out 
of  the  water  would  be  covered  with  them. 
They  were  all  of  one  color — as  yellow  as  sul- 
phur— and  appeared  to  be  very  unhappy.  I 
saw  large  stumps  so  covered  with  these  frogs, 
or  toads,  as  to  become  pyramids  of  yellow. 
Whether  frogs  or  toads,  they  seemed  averse  to 
getting  wet  and  were  all  seeking  dry  places. 
I  saw  a  snake  about  two  feet  long,  who 
had  filled  himself  up  with  them  from  head  to 
tail,  floating  lazily  on  the  surface  of  the  water. 
No  less  than  five  of  the  yellowbacks  had 
climbed  up  on  his  head  and  neck,  and  he  had 
only  energy  enough  left  to  clasp  his  jaws 
loosely  upon  one  of  them  and  then  let  go. 
The  snake  seemed  nearly  dead  from  over- 
eating. The  frogs  disappeared  in  a  day  or 
two  as  suddenly  as  they  had  come. 

At  the  time  of  this  small-sized  flood,  a  party 
of  surveyors  were  camped  upon  the  savanna 
near  Central  avenue  and  about  a  mile  from 
the  port.  Their  camp  was  high  enough  to 
escape  the  water,  but  they  were  pretty  well 
surrounded  by  it.  One  of  the  men,  finding 
deep  water  running  in  the  road,  went  a-fish- 


In  and  Around  La  Gloria.        207 

ing  there  and  boasted  that  he  had  caught  fish 
in  Central  avenue  !  The  water  soon  subsided, 
and  the  generally  accepted  explanation  of  the 
sudden  flood  was  that  it  had  been  caused  by 
the  overflow  of  the  Maximo,  and  that  there 
had  been  heavy  rains,  or  a  cloudburst,  twelve 
or  fifteen  miles  away. 

April  was  a  warm  month,  but  by  no  means 
an  uncomfortable  one.  The  lowest  tempera- 
ture recorded  was  67°  ;  the  highest,  94°.  The 
weather  was  delightful ;  the  breezes  were 
fresh  and  fragrant ;  flowers  were  blossoming 
everywhere ;  and  the  honey  bees  of  this 
incomparable  bee  country  were  happy  and 
industrious.  So,  too,  were  the  colonists. 
The  work  of  the  latter  was  well  advanced  by 
the  first  of  May,  or,  at  least,  that  of  some  of 
them.  As  an  example  of  industry,  D.  Siefert 
is  worthy  of  mention.  Mr.  Siefert  hailed 
from  British  Columbia  and  came  to  La  Gloria 
on  the  first  Yarmouth.  On  the  voyage  down 
he  was  somewhat  disturbed  over  the  question 
of  getting  his  deed,  but  once  in  La  Gloria,  he 
put  his  apprehensions  behind  him,  secured 
his  allotment  of  a  five-acre  plantation,  in- 
dulged in  no  more  vain  questionings  and 
waited  for  no  further  developments,  but  each 
morning  shouldered  his  axe  and  attacked  the 


In  and  Around  La  Gloria.        209 

trees  on  his  land.  He  kept  up  the  battle  for 
months,  rarely  missing  a  day's  work.  The 
result  was  that  by  May  i,  Mr.  Siefert,  alone 
and  unaided,  had  cleared  his  five  acres  of 
timber  land,  burned  it  over,  and  was  ready 
for  planting.  Other  colonists  worked  hard 
and  effectually  in  the  forest,  but  this  was  the 
best  single-handed  performance  that  came 
under  my  notice. 

Another  enterprising  and  highly  intelligent 
colonist  was  Max  Neuber  of  Philadelphia, 
who  has  been  before  alluded  to  as  one  of  the 
teachers  in  the  evening  school.  Mr.  Neuber 
pushed  the  work  upon  his  land,  doing  much 
of  it  himself.  Early  and  late  his  friends 
would  find  him  chopping,  digging,  and  plant- 
ing. When  he  left  for  the  States  in  April  he 
had  five  boxes  packed  with  the  products  of 
his  plantation,  such  as  lemons,  limes,  pota- 
toes, and  specimens  of  mahogany  and  other 
valuable  woods. 

A  group  of  industrious  workers,  most  of 
whom  had  earlier  been  attached  to  the  survey 
corps,  were  in  May  located  and  well  settled 
in  a  place  which  they  called  Mountain  View. 
This  was  a  partially  open  tract  four  or  five 
miles  west  of  La  Gloria  and  about  a  mile 
from  Mercedes.  Here  the  young  men  pitched 
14 


2io  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

theirt_  tents  and  swung  their  hammocks,  confi- 
dently claiming  that  they  had  the  best  spot  in 
all  the  country  round.  From  here  the  Cubi- 
tas  mountains  could  be  plainly  seen  ;  hence 
the  name  of  Mountain  View.  A  person  fol- 
lowing the  rough  trail  from  La  Gloria  to 
Mercedes  might  have  seen  on  a  tree  at  the 
left,  shortly  before  reaching  the  latter  place, 
a  shingle  bearing  the  inscription,  "  Change 
Cars  for  Mountain  View."  If  he  should 
choose  to  take  the  narrow,  rough,  and 
crooked  trail  to  the  left  through  the  woods, 
he  would  ere  long  come  out  into  the  open  and 
probably  see  Smith  Everett,  formerly  of  Len- 
awee  county,  Michigan,  lying  in  his  ham- 
mock watching  his  banana  trees  grow. 

I  have  before  mentioned  the  irregularity 
and  infrequency  of  the  mails.  The  remedy 
was  slow  in  coming.  The  chief  cause  of  the 
irregularity  was  The  Sangjai,  which,  though 
designed  to  be  an  aid  to  navigation,  was  often 
a  great  hindrance  to  it.  The  Sangjai  was  a 
very  narrow  and  very  shallow  channel,  partly 
natural  and  partly  artificial,  through  what 
had  once  been  the  Sabinal  peninsula.  The 
artificial  and  difficult  part  of  the  channel 
known  as  The  Sangjai  was  about  half  way 
between  La  Gloria  and  Nuevitas.  It  had  to 


In  and  Around  La  Gloria.        211 

be  used  in  following  the  short  or  "inside" 
water  course.  This  was  the  route  over  which 
went  our  mail  in  a  small  sailboat.  The 
Sangjai  at  one  point  was  so  shallow  that  it 
contained  only  a  few  inches  of  water  at  low 
tide  and  less  than  two  feet  when  the  tide  was 
high.  It  was  a  hard  place  to  get  through  at 
best,  and  many  a  passenger  on  craft  which 
went  this  way  had  to  get  out  and  walk,  and 
help  push  the  boat  besides  !  Boats  always 
had  to  be  pushed  or  poled  through  The 
Sangjai.  If  the  winds  permitted  the  sailboat 
to  reach  this  aggravating  channel  at  the  right 
time,  there  was  no  great  delay;  but  other- 
wise, the  boat  would  be  held  up  for  ten  or 
twelve  hours.  This  was  altogether  unpleas- 
ant, especially  as  the  mosquitoes  and  jejines 
claimed  The  Sangjai  (pronounced  Sanghi, 
or  corruptly,  Shanghi)  for  their  own.  The 
mail,  like  everything  else,  had  to  await  the 
will  of  the  waters,  or,  perhaps  I  should  say, 
the  convenience  of  the  moon.  The  Sangjai 
played  a  very  important  part  in  the  early  his- 
tory of  La  Gloria. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

THE  COLONY  AT  THE   END  OF  THE    FIRST 
YEAR. 

MY  pen  must  glide  rapidly  over  the  events 
of  the  summer  and  early  fall.  The  sawmill, 
which  had  been  so  long  delayed  and  so  often 
promised  as  to  become  a  standing  joke  in 
the  colony,  finally  reached  La  Gloria  from 
Nuevitas,  via  the  port,  on  May  30.  Nothing 
was  more  needed ;  its  non-arrival  had  de- 
layed both  building  operations  and  the  clear- 
ing of  land.  A  few  weeks  later  the  mill  was 
in  operation,  to  the  great  joy  of  the  colonists. 
In  June  the  construction  of  a  pole  tramway 
from  La  Gloria  to  a  point  on  the  bay  between 
the  port  and  the  Palota  landing  was  begun. 
This  was  completed  on  August  14,  and  trans- 
portation operations  were  at  once  inaugurated. 
The  new  landing  place  was  named  Newport. 
On  July  16  the  building  of  a  substantial  and 
permanent  highway  from  La  Gloria  to  the 
port  was  commenced  under  the  supervision  of 
Chief  Engineer  Kelly,  and  before  October  i 
the  work  was  well  advanced.  The  chosen 
route  was  along  Central  avenue. 


At  the  End  of  the  First  Year.    213 

The  colonists  celebrated  the  Fourth  of  July 
with  an  appropriate  entertainment.  On  July 
3  the  colony  witnessed  a  tragedy  in  the  kill- 
ing of  a  youth  named  Eugene  Head  by  a 
stone  thrown  by  a  young  Spanish  boy.  The 
coroner's  jury  decided  that  young  Head's 
death  was  accidental.  Both  boys  were  resi- 
dents of  La  Gloria.  The  fifth  of  July  was 
marked  by  the  death  of  a  valued  colonist, 
Mr.  F.  H.  Bosworth,  a  veteran  of  the  Civil 
War.  Mr.  Bosworth  was  seventy-one  years 
old,  and  had  not  been  in  rugged  health  for  a 
long  time.  He  was  an  enterprising  colonist, 
and  performed  a  great  deal  of  work  for  a 
man  of  his  years  and  enfeebled  physical 
condition.  His  wife,  also  a  resident  of  La 
Gloria,  survived  him.  The  general  health  of 
the  colony  through  the  summer  was  excel- 
lent. There  was  but  little  rain,  and  the 
weather  was  delightful  beyond  all  expecta- 
tion. The  temperature  ordinarily  ranged 
from  about  78°  to  90°,  and  never  exceeded 
94°.  The  colonists  came  to  believe  that  the 
summer  season  was  even  more  agreeable 
than  the  winter.  It  was  heartily  voted  that 
Cuba  was  a  good  all-the-year-round  country. 

The  end  of  the  first  year  of  the  colony — 
reckoning  from  October  9,  1899,  when  the 


At  the  End  of  the  First  Year.     215 

surveyors  began  operations — saw  much  prog- 
ress toward  extensive  colonization,  not  in  La 
Gloria  alone,  but  also  in  the  surrounding 
country.  The  Cuban  Colonization  Company, 
organized  with  Dr.  W.  P.  Peirce  of  Hoopes- 
ton,  111.,  as  president  and  treasurer,  and 
W.  G.  Spiker  of  Cleveland,  Ohio,  as  vice- 
president  and  general  manager,  had  acquired 
two  excellent  tracts  of  land,  known  as 
Laguna  Grande  and  Rincon  Grande,  to  the 
eastward  of  the  La  Gloria  property.  These 
are  being  subdivided  and  sold  to  colonists  in 
small  holdings.  In  the  Rincon  Grande  tract, 
on  the  bay  front,  the  city  of  Columbia  is 
being  laid  out,  and  doubtless  will  soon  be 
settled  by  thrifty  and  progressive  colonists 
from  the  United  States.  It  is  claimed  that 
this  is  the  exact  spot  where  Columbus  landed 
in  1492,  and  it  certainly  does  answer  well  the 
historical  description.  Other  colonists  had 
purchased  the  Canasi  tract,  southwest  of  La 
Gloria  and  adjoining  the  Caridad  property, 
and  Hon.  Peter  E.  Park  was  said  to  have 
secured  an  option  on  the  Palota  tract.  It  is 
understood  that  these  two  tracts  are  to  be 
divided  up  and  sold  to  colonists.  The  Cari- 
dad tract,  adjoining  La  Gloria  on  the  south, 
had  passed  into  the  hands  of  Mr.  O.  N. 


216  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

Lumbert  of  New  York,  and  still  other  tracts 
in  the  neighborhood  were  being  negotiated  for 
b}T  Americans.  Judging  from  the  progress 
of  this  first  year  in  colonization,  there  will 
soon  be  more  Americans  in  this  region  than 
Cubans. 

The  nearest  Cuban  village  to  La  Gloria 
is  Guanaja  (pronounced  Wan-ah-ha)  twelve 
miles  to  the  northwest,  and  six  or  seven  miles 
from  Mercedes.  Before  the  Ten  Years'  War 
Guanaja  was  a  port  of  some  importance,  and 
the  village  is  said  to  have  embraced  one  hun- 
dred and  eighty  houses.  But  the  town  and 
surrounding  country  suffered  severely  in  the 
long  war,  and  somewhat  in  the  later  conflict. 
Now  Guanaja  consists  of  one  rude  wooden 
building,  used  as  a  store,  and  a  dozen  shacks 
stretched  along  the  bay  front  close  to  the 
water,  with  a  few  scattered  palm  houses 
further  back  from  the  shore.  The  situation 
is  rather  picturesque,  commanding  a  beautiful 
view  across  the  brilliant-hued  water  to  Cayo 
Romano,  and  the  surrounding  country  is 
pleasant  and  might  be  made  highly  produc- 
tive. The  La  Gloria  colonists  sometimes  pat- 
ronized the  Guanaja  store,  and  found  the  pro- 
prietor accommodating  and  reasonable  in  his 
prices.  In  the  country  between  La  Gloria 


At  the  End  of  the  First  Year.     217 

and  Guanaja  we  would  often  meet  members 
of  the  Rural  Guard,  in  groups  of  two  or  three. 
They  were  fine-looking  mounted  Cubans,  se- 
lected by  the  American  military  government 
from  among  the  best  of  the  late  followers  of 
Gomez,  Garcia,  and  Maceo  to  patrol  the 
country  and  preserve  the  peace.  They  fre- 
quently visited  us  at  La  Gloria,  and  made  a 
favorable  impression. 

The  La  Gloria  colony  at  the  close  of  its 
first  year  had  several  newly  formed  organiza- 
tions in  a  flourishing  condition.  Prominent 
among  these  was  the  La  Gloria  Colony  Trans- 
portation Company,  which  owned  and  oper- 
ated the  pole  tramway  to  the  bay.  Its  officers 
were:  J.  C.  Kelly,  president;  D.  E.  Lowell, 
first  vice-president  and  general  manager  ;  W. 
A.  Merrow,  second  vice-president;  M.  A. 
Custer  Neff,  chief  engineer ;  R.  G.  Earner, 
secretary;  William  I.  Gill,  treasurer;  H.  W. 
O.  Margary,  counsel ;  and  John  Latham,  E. 
F.  Rutherford,  D.  W.  Clifton,  R.  H.  Ford, 
W.  M.  Carson,  J.  A.  Messier,  directors.  The 
La  Gloria  Colony  Telephone  Company,  or- 
ganized to  construct  and  operate  a  telephone 
line  .to  the  bay,  was  officered  as  follows : 
J.  C.  Kelly,  president;  F.  E.  Kezar,  vice- 
president  and  general  manager;  J.  R.  P.  de 


218  Pioneering  in  Cuba. 

les  Derniers,  secretary  ;  S.  M.  Van  der  Voort, 
chief  engineer  and  director;  J.  A.  Connell, 
director.  The  La  Gloria  Colony  Cemetery 
Association  had  the  following  officers  :  J.  C. 
Kelly,  M.  A.  C.  Neff,  D.  E.  Lowell,  trus- 
tees ;  J.  C.  Kelly,  president;  H.  W.  O.  Mar- 
gary,  vice-president ;  E.  L.  Ellis,  treasurer  ; 
A.  B.  Chambers,  secretary ;  Rev.  W.  A. 
Nicholas,  general  manager ;  F.  E.  Kezar, 
J.  C.  Francis,  S.  L.  Benham,  Mrs.  W.  A. 
Nicholas,  Mrs.  John  Lind,  directors.  The 
Cuban  Land  and  Steamship  Company  donated 
ten  acres  of  land  for  a  cemetery.  The  La 
Gloria  Horticultural  Society  had  about  thirty 
members,  with  officers  as  follows  :  H.  W.  O. 
Margary,  president ;  A.  W.  Provo,  vice-pres- 
ident ;  R.  G.  Earner,  secretary  ;  Smith  Ever- 
ett, treasurer.  The  La  Prima  Literary  Soci- 
ety also  had  something  like  thirty  members, 
and  these  officers  :  H.  W.  O.  Margary,  chair- 
man ;  A.  W.  Provo,  vice-chairman ;  R.  H. 
Ford,  secretary ;  Smith  Everett,  treasurer. 
The  two  last  named  societies  jointly  pur- 
chased a  town  lot,  and  propose  to  erect  at 
some  future  time  a  building  for  a  hall,  read- 
ing-room, etc. 

The    colony's  first  anniversary    found  im- 
provements marching  steadily,  if  not  rapidly, 


At  the  End  of  the  First  Year.     219 

on.  The  sawmill,  already  alluded  to,  was 
busily  at  work  ^  Olson's  shingle  mill  was  com- 
pleted ;  the  two-story  frame  building  on  Cen- 
tral avenue  to  be  used  as  post-office,  dwell- 
ing, etc.,  was  done,  as  were  numerous  other 
wooden  houses  occupied  as  stores  or  resi- 
dences ;  there  were  half  a  dozen  well-stocked 
stores  doing  business,  and  several  restaur- 
ants and  bakeries.  Many  buildings  were  in 
process  of  construction,  and  much  clearing 
and  planting  going  on.  Choice  fruit  trees 
were  being  imported,  as  well  as  cattle,  mules, 
swine,  and  poultry.  The  colonists  were  sub- 
sisting in  part  upon  vegetables  and  pineapples 
of  their  own  raising,  and  looking  confidently 
forward  to  exporting  products  of  this  charac- 
ter in  the  near  future. 

Fruit  growing  was  the  most  popular  indus- 
try among  the  colonists,  but  there  were  those 
who  were  looking  into  the  subjects  of  sugar, 
coffee,  tobacco,  cacao,  rubber,  lumber,  cattle 
raising,  etc.  The  outlook  for  all  such  enter- 
prises seemed  highly  promising.  Urgent  needs 
of  La  Gloria  are  a  canning  factory  and  an  es- 
tablishment for  the  manufacture  of  furniture  ; 
these  industries  should  flourish  from  the  start. 

The  enthusiasm  of  the  colonists  was  un- 
bounded ;  they  were  filled  and  thrilled  with 


22O 


Pioneering  in  Cuba. 


delight  over  their  new  home  in  the  tropics. 
The  climate  was  glorious,  the  air  refreshing 
and  soothing,  the  country  picturesque  and 
healthful,  the  soil  fertile  and  productive.  Not 
for  a  moment  did  they  doubt  that,  after  a  few 
short  years  of  slight  hardship  and  trifling  dep- 
rivations, a  life  of  luxurious  comfort  lay  before 
them.  A  fortune  or  a  competence  seemed 
certain  to  come  to  every  man  who  would  work 
and  wait  for  it,  and  in  all  La  Gloria  there 
was  hardly  a  person  to  be  found  who  would 
willingly  blot  from  his  memory  his  interesting 
experiences  while  PIONEERING  IN  CUBA. 


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